Alea Iacta Est
by StVincent
Summary: Weiss has never experienced Dungeons & Dragons, so Blake ropes her into a game night with Ruby and Yang. And Dungeon Master Velvet is eager to show off her new "Mountain Glenn" campaign. (A follow-up to the chapter 5 minific in Nerds Flirting.)
1. Roll Initiative

**Author's Note:** This is a fic co-authored by Liara_90 and Lydia_Rogue over on AO3 (where you can also find slightly more detailed author's notes).

* * *

"Hey, Velvet? I need to call in a favor."

There was a moment of silence on the line. "Blake, I hope you're not asking me to cover for you while you firebomb a SDC warehouse in the dead of night, _again_." There was a tease undergirding the statement, but the seriousness was unmistakable.

"What?" Blake wasn't sure she heard right but when her mind caught up, her indignation was explosive. " _Velvet_!" she hissed, "I'm not _firebombing_ anything! I haven't been with the White Fang for _years_!"

"Aren't you dating Weiss _Schnee_? That would be bloody awkward." There was a pause. " _Does she know_?" Velvet asked, quietly.

"I told you, I'm not firebombing anything!" Blake took a deep breath. "And yes, she knows that I used to be part of the Fang. And yes—to answer your next question—we're still dating despite it, okay?"

"All right, what do you want me to do, then?" Velvet's tone was still a little tense, as if expecting another borderline criminal request.

"Can you DM a one-shot _Dungeons & Dragons_ game for me this weekend? It should be me, Weiss, Ruby, and Yang. Your place?"

A sigh of relief came through the Scroll. "Oh, sure! That's much better than what I was expecting."

"Velvet! I'm not fire—"

"Fine, fine. I know, but I still get nightmares about the _one_ time."

"You weren't even anywhere near the warehouse when it went up!"

Velvet remained silent on the other end, but Blake was pretty sure she was glaring.

"And, of course, neither was I..." she appended furtively. Blake shook her head to clear it. "But the game—" she tried to steer the conversation back to the relevant topic. "I know you'll want to do the game in 3.5e, but Weiss will probably roll a spellcaster, so can we use the 'unlimited cantrips' house rule?"

Velvet's voice brightened as she entered her element. "Sure! As long as the cantrip takes a standard action to cast. Of course I reserve the right to tweak spells as needed if they're overpowered." She barely paused for a breath as she continued at a rapid pace. "How about starting everyone at level 8 for the one-shot, and..."

She smiled to herself as she reached for a pen to jot down the slew of house rule and homebrew information that followed.

* * *

Blake breathed a sigh of relief as she ended her call to Velvet. She was massaging her cramping hand as she looked over her notes for the one-shot when Weiss walked over holding a character sheet and a copy of the _Player's Handbook_.

"Ruby and Yang are happy to join us this weekend, and it sounds like they've got characters in mind. But what kind of class should _I_ be?"

"New players find that learning the basic rules is hard enough without trying to manage a more complex class," Blake replied in a calculatedly neutral tone, "so the standard recommendation is a fighter class because they have _much_ simpler mechanics than, for example, spellcasters."

Weiss narrowed her eyes. "Challenge accepted."

"I assume you want to play a spellcaster?"

"You were planning on manipulating me into it, weren't you?"

"We probably will need one," Blake admitted. She hastily added, "and I knew you'd have no trouble learning all the relevant rules even though this is your first time!" in response to the glare.

Weiss appeared mollified.

"Why don't you look over the sorcerer and wizard classes while I pass along some game details to Ruby and Yang." Blake paused for a moment. "And Weiss? Please don't memorize the _Player's Handbook_. This is just a game night with friends, not a cutthroat SDC board meeting."

"I wasn't going to memorize it!"

"You're a terrible liar."

* * *

A few days later, Weiss found herself covering the last dozen steps to Velvet's apartment at a sloth's pace, cursing her internalized allegrophobia. A text from Blake had notified her that her girlfriend was still stuck in line at the grocery store, picking up offerings of junk food for their hosts and friends. Killing a few minutes so she didn't arrive alone would probably have been the socially adroit thing to do, but now that she was at the door Weiss couldn't force herself to delay. After only a momentary pause, Weiss rapped her knuckles against the door, straining her ears to pick up the sounds of activity within.

The door swung open without warning, and Weiss suddenly found herself face-to-face with six feet of haute couture. She saw her own jaw drop slightly in the mirrored lenses of the woman's sunglasses.

Sunglasses which were slid down a moment later, allowing a pair of chocolate-brown eyes to peer over their titanium frames. "You're Weiss Schnee," the woman finally declared, after the silence had stretched to several seconds.

"Yes?" Weiss cautiously confirmed.

The woman made no move from the threshold of the door, one finger tapping the frame as if puzzling out a question. She opened her mouth, as if to say something, then slammed the door in Weiss' face.

" _Velvs_!" Weiss could hear the woman's voice, muffled only faintly by the door. "There's a _Schnee_ at the door!"

" _It's okay, Coco!"_ a second voice shouted back. Weiss listened faintly to the hurried patter of feet, before the door was swung open again. "Oh, good, you didn't go anywhere." Weiss blinked—having the door slammed in her face had left her too confused to do anything at all. "Come in, please, make yourself at home."

Weiss stepped carefully over the threshold, careful to keep her expression neutral in the face of Coco's watchful gaze. Her eyes darted about the room, appraising it in a heartbeat. She knew Yatsuhashi was working for the school, so she'd half-expected student housing, but the apartment was clearly several cuts above a dorm. It was very well-appointed, and the touches of a professional interior decorator were evident here and there. She was pretty sure she even owned the same couches, though hers were in white leather instead of chocolate brown, of course.

"Glad you found my place okay," called out Velvet, returning to a large table she had been in the middle of fussing over. "Well, it's really Coco's place, we all just crash here."

Coco made some airily dismissive gesture. "It's _our_ place," she corrected, though the tone of her voice made it clear that this was a conversation they'd had many times before.

"You wouldn't happen to be the same Coco Adel who just made _Forbes_ ' "30 Under 30" list, would you?" asked Weiss, letting one hand rest on the back of a nearby chair.

Coco let out a _hmph_ of faint approval. "Yes, that's me. That bio was bullshit though," she grumbled.

"Coco's just annoyed they wasted so much ink on her involvement with her parent's law firm. She's much prouder of her work as a fashion designer than her expertise in intellectual property issues relating to fashion design," Velvet clarified.

Yatsuhashi came out of one of the bedrooms carrying a stack of papers and a red pen. Taking one look at the tension in the room, he said, "Weiss was one of my students, along with Ruby, when I was TA-ing junior year. I can vouch for her."

Coco looked from Yatsuhashi to Weiss, who shifted uncomfortably. A knock at the door broke some of the tension. "I guess if you're going to vouch for her, I can trust her not to haul Velvs off to work in the mines," Coco said as she opened the door to reveal a mortified Blake, whose expression made it quite clear that she had heard everything.

" _Coco_!" both faunus shouted at the same time.

She didn't apologize, though, just crossed her arms, expression concealed behind dark sunglasses and a practiced look of indifference.

"Just remember, Schnee, I know all about your company's less-than-transparent labor contracts," said Coco, with a glare Weiss was _pretty_ sure was faked. "And Velvet: if she tries to get you to sign anything in your own blood— _call me_!"

"I resent the implication that I am some sort of Mephistopheles," grumbled Weiss.

" _Hardly_ ," corrected Coco, though this time Weiss caught the flash of a grin. "Faust at least got a lifetime of worldly pleasures in exchange for his soul."

"Don't you have somewhere to go?" Velvet asked.

Blake dumped her snack offerings onto the counter, freeing up her hands to remove her bow now that she was in the safety of the apartment. "Y'know, Coco, if I didn't trust her to at _least_ refrain from press-ganging all faunus into unsafe mine work, I wouldn't be dating her."

Coco nodded in approval when the bow came off, deciding to trust their judgement. Crossing the room to give Velvet and Yatsuhashi a kiss goodbye, she said, "All right, I'm heading out. Don't get into too much trouble." She even gave Weiss a small smile before leaving—letting in Ruby and Yang in the process.

Ruby seemed to be carrying her own weight in processed sugar, which she added to the already alarmingly-sized pile of snacks on the kitchen counter. Yang had a case of beer under her arm— some craft brand Weiss didn't recognize, but trusted was halfway decent.

"That is... a lot of sugar," Weiss commented, giving the bucket of Red Vines Ruby was carrying to the table a sideways glance.

"Just as long as she's not sitting next to me," Yang said, grabbing a bag of Cheetos and sauntering over to the table, pointedly sitting down _across_ the table from her sister. "All right! Let's get this _party_ going."

"Can I see everyone's character sheets?" Velvet asked. "I want to get an idea of what the party will look like. I've already got the player tokens out based on the rough info you gave me beforehand." She waved at the table. "In your favorite colors, of course," she added.

They all passed over their character sheets as they got settled in, Ruby and Yang on either side of Velvet, with Weiss and Blake down at the other end.

Ruby was admiring an intricately painted box that was sitting on the table, serving as an extension of Velvet's DM screen. "What's in _that_?" she asked, leaning in to examine the details.

" _Everything_ ," Velvet replied with a wink. Her playful demeanor faded as she studied the character sheets in her hand. "Ruby, this is... _complex._ Are you sure—"

"I can handle it," she mumbled around half a Red Vine. "Rose is no more complex than characters I've run with Yang."

"Oh, you did one of _those_ characters. She can totally handle it." Yang waved off Velvet's concerns literally, the faint whirring of prosthetic mechanisms audible as she flapped her right hand. "She loves doing the weirdest mix of classes. It works surprisingly well."

"All right, these look good: Weiss has a solid wizard build and Blake's got her go-to shadowdancer prestige class. Though Yang, you're playing a monk? A monk named _Ember._ " Velvet's tone wavered between incredulous and amused.

Yang's brow furrowed. "Well, yeah. I mean, I know I usually play a different fighter class, but I wanted to try something new."

Velvet rolled her eyes. "That's fine, but you couldn't have picked a more creative name?"

Yang sputtered indignantly. "What's wrong with 'Ember'?"

Velvet didn't respond out loud; she simply flipped open the _Player's Handbook_ to the monk on page 41 and pointed to the caption given for the illustration: " _Ember_."

"Oh. I didn't even notice that." Yang rubbed the back of her neck. "That's not where I got the name from."

"She named her character after her lighter, Ember Celica!" Ruby chimed in.

" _Ruby_!" Yang glared across the table at her sister. At Ruby's mischievous smile, she added, "Well you named _yours_ after your drafting pencil."

It was Ruby's turn to sputter. "So did Weiss!"

Weiss joined in on glaring at Ruby. "It's a _fountain pen_. And at least mine's not just my last name! Plus 'Myrtle' is a _translation_ of 'Myrtenaster.'" Weiss redirected her glare towards her girlfriend, whose face was carefully neutral. "You might as well own up to it now, ' _Shroud_.'"

Blake pretended not to hear her.

"You _all_ named your characters after what's in your _pockets_?" Velvet asked, snorting in amusement. "Nerds."

Blake raised an eyebrow and gestured to the elaborate set up in front of them. "Do you _really_ want to go there, Velvet?" She turned to Yang. "And dare I ask why you're snickering?"

"You've all adopted _pen names_!"

" _Yang_!"

Velvet rubbed her temples. "Is everyone ready to start?" A chorus of affirmations came from around the table. "All right. The four of you have been summoned to the Guildmaster's office after responding to a posting requesting help. It was a little thin on details, but it promised a handsome reward, so you make your way there..."

 _The Guildmaster's Quarters are located at the top of the ivory tower, offering a commanding view of the lands in every direction. Guildmaster Ozpin stands with his back to the door, hands resting gently atop a cane. He appears lost in thought—_

"I cough loudly," Yang stated, earning a glare from the DM as her prepared monologue was interrupted. Yang shrugged.

 _The Guildmaster turns to face the four of them, surveying the group with an effortless sweep of his eyes. While he is unmistakably_ older _, his face has a timeless quality to it, making his age all but impossible to guess._

 _"Good evening, guildsmen," says Ozpin, strolling over to his desk with unhurried deliberation. "Thank you for agreeing to meet with me on such short notice." He turns to study a few sheets of paper spread across his desk. "All four of you responded to the request for an investigation into the old Dust mine in Mountain Glenn."_

"We're investigating a mine?" asked Weiss, a faint sigh of exacerbation escaping her.

"Ooh, maybe it's a _Schnee_ mine," teased Ruby.

"And our quest is to make sure everything is OSHA compliant," Yang added with a grin." I mean, the _real_ heroes are the people fighting for better workplace conditions."

Weiss groaned.

 _"I was under the impression that the assignment called for_ one _adventurer, Guildmaster," says Shroud, folding her arms across her chest as she speaks. "Quadruple the manpower means a quarter the reward."_

 _Ozpin nods softly, unperturbed by Shroud's ambivalence. "How you divide the reward is ultimately your own choosing, Shadowdancer. But this assignment comes from the Ruling Council, and it is quite generous, even quartered."_

 _"What do you need us to do?" asks Rose. "We're always eager to help the Guildmaster!"_

"Suck up," teased Yang. Ruby stuck out her tongue.

 _"Tell me... are you familiar with the history of Mountain Glenn?"_

 _"Vaguely," answers Shroud. "It was a small village a few leagues outside of town. Mostly a trading outpost, but a small settlement built up around the mine. At least, until it was overrun by monsters. But that was years ago."_

 _Ozpin nods, swiveling in his chair so he is facing the horizon once more. "Correct, Shroud, however abbreviated your account is. Creatures of darkness—grimm—had driven many of the townsfolk away. And you are all no doubt aware of the group of bandits that are calling themselves the White Fang."_

"The White Fang?" Blake's tone was decidedly unamused.

Velvet met Blake's gaze with an unamused look of her own. "I started writing this campaign, oh, two years and three months ago, give or take a couple of days. You were actually 'hanging out in my apartment' and 'not at the docks' _all_ night, don't you remember?" Velvet curled her ears in an approximation of air quotes. "It 'totally' had nothing to do with establishing an alibi."

Blake glowered as the sisters exchanged confused looks and Weiss tried to look nonchalant. "Fair enough. _Please_ , continue."

 _"They've mostly confined themselves to petty banditry—unescorted caravans and unguarded settlements. What is more worrying is that they appear willing to sell their services to the highest bidder. What they lack in ability they make up for in numbers and zealotry."_

Blake was the only one who could hear the "as well as stupidity" Velvet appended under her breath. That earned her a second glower.

 _"So you believe they're using Mountain Glenn as a base of some sort?" asks Myrtle, speaking for the first time since they gathered._

 _"Correct, Myrtle. The monstrous perils of the surrounding lands make it too dangerous for regular patrols from the town to reach. The bandits appear to have found some way to cohabit with the beasts and grimm of the land and can traverse it unmolested. This is obviously an untenable position."_

 _"Could they be using the old mine for transportation and fortification?" asks Rose, her head snapping upright, enthusiasm evident._

Velvet took a swig from a paper cup bearing a Starbucks' logo, the cup appearing from—and promptly disappearing behind—her DM's screen.

 _Ozpin nods, taking a sip from his cup as he does. "That is my leading hypothesis, Rose. Unfortunately I could find no record of the mine's layout within the mountain in any of the archives, and any descriptions are third-hand accounts at best."_

 _"I hate to sell myself short," says Ember, "but isn't destroying a bandit fortress a little outside our Guild's scope? You could hire scores of swordsmen for the same amount of gold, and quite frankly this seems like their kind of work."_

 _"And if I wanted a broadsword, you four would amount to a very dull butter knife."_ Yang and Ruby both scowled. _"No, I am not looking for death and destruction, however likely those may follow in your wake. What troubles me is not so much the existence of their raids, but the_ absence _of them. In the past few weeks, the White Fang have vanished off the face of the world entirely. While their violence has ebbed and flowed in the past, it has never ceased entirely."_

 _"Is it possible they broke up?" asks Myrtle. "A change in leadership, a schism, a dispute over the division of spoils...?"_

 _"It is possible," concedes Ozpin, "but then one would expect petty robbery to supplant sophisticated banditry." He shakes his head. "I have been in contact with every sentry outpost in a dozen leagues, and they have reported no such activity."_

 _"So what do you think they're doing?" asks Ember. "Or do you think they somehow got wiped out entirely?"_

 _Ozpin raises his palms to the sky. "I'm afraid you know about as much as I do, Ember." He paused. "I have my theories, but perhaps such speculation is better left to—" There are a half-dozen furious knocks on the door to the Guildmaster's Office. "If you would be so kind," Ozpin says, gesturing to the door._

 _Ember moves to the door, opening it cautiously. The three other adventurers stand a careful distance behind her._

Velvet glanced up from her notes, grinning mischievously.

 _The man who walks into the room looks like he's never stopped to study himself in a mirror before. His green hair appears to have never met a comb and absolutely nothing about his outfit matches. "Hello ladies!" he calls out, waving frenetically. "I'll be your guide to the mine, and if you don't mind, I might tag along—not every day you have a fine band of warriors heading that way!"_

Velvet was barely containing her laughter by the end.

"Is this guy for real?" Yang asked, jaw hanging slack. The contrast in tone was jarring—Velvet had effortlessly changed her voice from the thoughtful, deliberate cadence of Guildmaster Ozpin to that of a man who brewed his coffee with Red Bull instead of water.

" _I recognize that voice," says Shroud_. "Shroud" might not have, but Blake Belladonna certainly did. Velvet had a few NPCs who tended to pop up in any given campaign, if only because she enjoyed doing the voices. _"A Mister Oobleck?"_

The correction of "' _Doctor Oobleck_!'" from Velvet was nearly instantaneous.

Weiss' brow furrowed. " _Doctor?_ Is there even a university around here? Where did he get his doctorate?" Belatedly, she added, "Do we _want_ a non-combatant tagging along?"

The correction of "Non-player character!" from everyone else at the table was nearly instantaneous.

 _Oobleck ignores the adventurers' bickering, pacing back and forth as he speaks with the manic urgency of a man cooped up with his ideas for far too long. "You may_ think _you know everything there is to know about Mountain Glenn, but I assure you you are only scratching the thinnest surface of the... surface! References to the mountain go back almost to the beginning of this region's recorded history. Even the origins of Mountain Glenn's mine—a relatively recent addition, I would very much like you to note!—are shrouded in folk tales and legends. I have spent the past fortnight forgoing sleep almost entirely in order to sift through literal centuries of recorded history."_

Velvet paused, slurping from a can of Red Bull that had been hidden behind her screen.

" _What did you find, Doctor?" asks Myrtle._

 _"A very excellent question, young lady! The recent literature is almost entirely worthless—unless of course unless you're interested in the evolution of baronial taxation policy since—"_

"I'm not," declared Yang.

" _Going back to the oldest historical sources—and I very much qualify the use of the term 'history' here—there are numerous references to an entity of immense power that made its home within the mountain. Many of these accounts are no doubt mere fairy tales and superstition, but nearly every recollection shares certain narrative elements. First: that there was a monster that terrorized these lands since before recorded history. Second: that that monster now slumbers deep within Mountain Glenn. And third..."_

Silence hung in the air.

 _"And third?" prompts Shroud._

" _That it must_ never _be awoken," murmurs Oobleck, his pace slowing so that every syllable seems to echo in the room._

"Ooh, it's just like _The Hobbit_!" declared Ruby, grinning. She knew how easy it was to rile Velvet by insinuating that all fantasy was Tolkien.

Velvet scowled. "Do you _see_ any dwarves here? Or, for that matter, a dragon?"

"I bet it's not even a monster," said Blake, mostly for the sake of creating a counterpoint to Ruby's observation. "The 'monster' is probably a metaphor for an ancient volcanic eruption, the same way natural disasters always get chalked up to one deity or another."

"What, so Velv's going to have us go on a geological expedition to survey an old volcano?" asked Yang.

"And think of how cool that would be!" beamed Ruby. "Imagine if it erupted! Pyroclastic density currents! Dirty thunderstorms! Lava fountains!"

Yatsu's head perked up, familiar jargon tearing him from the world of ungraded midterms. He took in Ruby's enthusiasm with a smile, basking momentarily in the satisfaction of a TA's job well done.

 _"Regardless of your personal opinions on the matter, the continued presence of the White Fang in the mines is deeply concerning," says Ozpin, his gentle cadence recapturing the attention of the adventurers immediately. "The opportunity cost of their seclusion is a small fortune in loot."_

 _"And I somehow doubt they've decided to settle down and live as miners," notes Shroud, glibly._

 _"So you think someone has hired the White Fang to excavate the mountain search of this fabled monster?" asks Myrtle._

 _"As I said, all I have are my theories," repeats Ozpin. "Theories which_ you _four are being hired to test. You are tasked with discovering what, exactly, the White Fang are engaged in at Mountain Glenn, and on whose behalf. Should their activities pose a danger to this town, you are expected to make every effort to disrupt them."_

 _"That 'disruption' better be associated with a bonus of some sort," grumbles Ember._

 _"This is not a simple test of strength, guildsmen. This is an assignment that will require subtlety, intellect... maybe even diplomacy," he says with a faint grin._

 _"We're doomed," mutters Myrtle. Ember pointedly ignores her._

 _"Now then, ladies, I have taken the liberty of chartering a small fishing vessel which will can take us downstream to Mountain Glenn's watermill. It will be departing at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning, so I expect you all to be fully rested and equipped for a few days of adventuring!" With little more than a tip of his hat, "Doctor" Oobleck is off in the blink of an eye._

 _"So... time to go shopping?" asks Shroud, drafting a mental list of the items she would need to stock up on._

Ruby bounced in her seat, giddy at the prospect of bedecking "Rose" with the most stat-boosting gear ever authorized by Wizards of the Coast.

Yang groaned. "Get comfortable, people. We're going to be here a while."

"How long can an imaginary shopping trip possibly take?" asked Weiss.

Ruby reached beneath her seat and pulled out the _Arms and Equipment Guide_ , its pages dog-eared, sticky-noted, and covered with frantic annotations. Several more sourcebooks followed in rapid succession until the table was fairly groaning with the added weight.

"You had to ask," muttered Yang.

* * *

(Thirty minutes later...)

Velvet's drooping ears were the only part of her visible from behind the DM's screen as she buried her face in her hands. She _really_ shouldn't have given them each 27,000 gold pieces to buy equipment: gearing up this party was a nightmare. Maybe helping Blake firebomb a warehouse would have been a better option for her weekend...

It certainly would have been less grating. For the umpteenth time she felt a tap at her elbow as Ruby wandered over. "Velvet! Can I have a—"

Velvet didn't even hear the item name as she tried to will away her headache. Whatever it was it was surely much the same as the two dozen other items that came before: esoteric, overpowered, and buried in the appendix of some half-forgotten sourcebook. Velvet had a suspicion that Ruby enjoyed optimizing her build as much as she enjoyed playing the end result.

" _Fine_ , you can have a magical scythe with an improved critical range, but _no_ , you can't put a gun on it!"

Ruby opened her mouth—

"No crossbow bolts either!"

At least Weiss was easier to deal with. She, too, had assembled a list of highly optimized gear—though much shorter—but censored herself once she realized that _Myrtle_ had a far more limited budget than _Weiss Schnee_. To her credit, she weathered the jokes about being filthy rich with aplomb, and she only pouted momentarily as she crossed the Ring of Wizardry (IV) off her list.

Blake had cleared her equipment with Velvet beforehand: a magical kusari-gama and a few odds-and-ends were exchanged for a few thousand pieces of gold within moments. She was now helping Weiss leaf through manuals in search of affordable gear.

Yang, who had finished twenty minutes ago, had given up and gone to make popcorn. Her list had been simple—and became even simpler once she remembered she couldn't wear armor and only needed a ranged weapon. She returned in time to hear the tail end of an argument over _dogs_. "Ruby, Velvet already said we wouldn't be able to take horses onto the boat and that we wouldn't need them anyway. A riding dog isn't going to be any different."

The look of betrayal from Ruby was nearly enough to make Yang recant the statement. _Nearly_. "That look may have worked on dad with Zwei, but it's not going to work here."

Velvet shot her a look of gratitude and turned back to Ruby, who was already flipping through yet another sourcebook. "Okay, you have ten minutes to finish picking out supplies—and stick to the _Dungeon Master's Guide_ and _Player's Handbook,_ please."

There was another look of betrayal before Ruby delved into the books again to spend her last few thousand gold.

 _Their shopping expedition ends just over ten minutes later with both a bang and a whimper: the haggard shopkeep slamming his door shut, leaving a crestfallen Rose to whinge pathetically about her less-than-perfect footwear._

 _Her companions have little sympathy for her tribulations._

* * *

" _Ah, ladies, nice of you to_ finally _arrive," greets Oobleck, tapping his foot impatiently on the small pier._ His irritation was an apt reflection of the DM's.

 _"I'm sorry!" calls out Rose. "It turns out I was carrying a heavy load so I had to spend a few minutes deciding whether I was more likely to need my extreme cold survival gear or—"_

"And you spent _forever_ shopping! We were there, Ruby," her sister reminded her. Ember was now doubling as a beast of burden as a result.

 _Shroud boards the repurposed fishing vessel first, taking a moment to assess its seaworthiness._  
Blake tossed her favorite d20 for a Spot check.

"The die is cast!" Yang shouted in excitement.

Weiss looked confused. "While we _are_ on a river, we're merely going downstream, not crossing it. And she's making a Spot check, not starting a civil war..."

"Yang's just making a quip about the first die roll of the game. She's probably never heard of the Rubicon," Blake stage-whispered to her girlfriend.

Yang blew a raspberry at the pair.

"What was your Spot check, Blake?" Velvet tried to wrangle the players back on topic.

 _Shroud's findings are not encouraging._

 _"What a piece of junk," she gripes, nervous about putting too much weight anywhere._

 _"Hah, a junk junk," snorts Ember._ Or possibly Yang. Velvet looked at her skeptically. "You know, a junk, a flat-bottomed boat. So it's like—"

"We understood, Yang," interrupted Weiss.

 _Ember and Myrtle board next, while Rose takes up the rear, the boat dipping ominously as the vessel's buoyancy is tested. Oobleck casts off the vessel's tethers and within a minute they are off, the boat drifting downstream on the river's currents._

 _The vestiges of civilization fade away in a matter of minutes, an eerie reminder of the supremacy of the land's monsters, both bestial and human. Before the hour is up only the infrequent, abandoned fishing net taints the unblemished wilderness..._

"Fortitude check for sea-sickness! DC 10!" announced the DM.

"Fortitude? I don't have a Fortitude skill...?" Weiss frantically skimmed the _Player's Handbook_ , wishing she had ignored Blake's admonition not to memorize it.

Blake leaned over. "It's a saving throw, not skill. Roll a d20 and add your constitution modifier and any miscellaneous modifiers—" she pointed to the left of her character sheet, "listed here. Reflex saves primarily add dex, and will saves add wisdom."

Weiss looked up in understanding. "Got it."

Dice clattered against the table.

"Oh for f—" grumbled Weiss.

 _The wizard looks like she's barely keeping breakfast down as the boat is gently rocked by the river's flow._

 _Ember snickers loudly._

 _"Now then, ladies, this is as good a time as any to establish proper adventuring protocol for the duration of our trip to Mountain Glenn," declares Oobleck. "I admit, I fancy myself more of an intellectual, but I can assure you, as a dues-paying member of the Adventurers' Guild, I've had my fair share of tussles."_

"With the espresso machine, no doubt," murmured Blake.

"Why would you use mushrooms in a coffee machine?" asked Ruby in confusion.

"Those are _truffles_ ," corrected Blake.

"Oh!" Ruby pondered it for a moment, brows furrowing. "But you use _beans_ , not _sprouts_ in a coffee machine..."

"Those are _Brussels_." This time Yang joined in the conversation.

 _The Doctor barely notices the interruption as he continues on an impassioned rant about the importance of history and archaeology to the Adventurer's Guild._

 _By the end of the boat ride, only Myrtle is still paying attention._

Weiss looked up from her notes on Oobleck's talk at the amused faces around the table. "How much of this is actually going to be relevant to the campaign?"

"Maybe a little bit of it, but no where near all of it." Blake looked over her girlfriend's shoulder at the detailed notes she'd taken and pointed at a few lines on an archeological expedition gone sour due to a sordid love affair. "I can almost _guarantee_ that none of this is going to be relevant."

Weiss put Myrtenaster back into her pen case, slightly disappointed. "But it _sounded_ really interesting." She shifted slightly in her seat. "I didn't get a chance to read much of the _Player's Handbook_ ," she began, shooting a baleful look at Blake, "so I know you're a _monk_ , Yang, but what does that mean for combat?"

"I go in and punch things. I can heal myself and am light on my feet, but mostly I go in and punch things."

"Oh!" Ruby interjected. "I slice and dice the enemies and try and draw their attention away from you while you're casting spells. I can even heal you if you're injured."

"I tend to be more focused on the edges of the combat, trying to catch people unawares—quite literally hiding in the shadows with my prestige class. I'm also supposed to keep you safe from traps or other man-made environmental dangers." Blake's grin was sheepish as she added, "I can also pick any locks we come across."

Weiss nodded her understanding and they all turned back to Velvet to continue the story.

 _They make their way off the boat and into the small village that sat at the foot of Mountain Glenn. There is something unsettling about the town as the five of them make their way through the streets. By all rights, the mining town should have been abandoned when the mine was shut down, but somehow the residents had managed to carve out a life for themselves here regardless._

 _Doctor Oobleck is more tightly wound than usual. "Ladies, I want to take a moment here and see if we can't find out more information. Something feels off, and it almost certainly wasn't my coffee. We will reconvene in one hour!" He zips off before they can say anything in response._

"Unless you all want to leave him behind, Gather Information checks, please!"

"Well considering he's our guide to the mine..." Ruby grumbled under her breath. "6."

"17."

"13."

"Natural 20!"

Velvet rolled a couple of dice and then added, "Yang, give me a Spot check as well."

"Awwww, yeah, 18! My dice are doing great today."

"Don't jinx yourself," Blake muttered.

 _The four of them wander around, going their separate ways in the relative safety of the town to learn what they can._

 _Rose learns from the priest that there are several groups of people who regularly go up the mountain to pray, but he refuses to clarify exactly what or how they worship, or whether the faithful ever return._

 _In the local spellcasters' guild, Myrtle is welcomed with open arms and ends up with several invitations to dinner that night—and the mages seem genuinely disappointed when she has to decline. They, too, recount the trips up to the mountain, but they are up-front about how the travelers are never heard from again._

Blake looked suspiciously across the table at Velvet, whose nose was twitching with a poorly-concealed smile. "Are they hitting on my girlfriend?"

"Are _Myrtle_ and _Shroud_ dating? I thought they just met." After opposing Bluff and Sense Motive rolls from Velvet and Weiss, she simply adds, "Myrtle certainly doesn't pick up on any vibes they're trying to hit on her."

Blake let it go with a sigh.

 _Shroud is greeted in a similar fashion at the thieves' guild—though the warmth makes her hackles rise. Thieves might form strong fraternities over time, but outsiders are usually treated with caution and wariness, even_ with _guild credentials. Still, Shroud smiles and nods, thanking them for their hospitality and reciprocating their kindness._

 _Heading to the—_

"Yang, you're a _monk_ , you can't go to the _bar_ ," Velvet protested.

"I'm lawful _neutral_ , not lawful _good_ , plus there's nothing _illegal_ about the tavern, right?"

Velvet conceded the point with a shake of her head.

 _Heading to the local watering hole, Ember picks up on much the same vibe Shroud does—there's something off about the warm greeting she receives from everyone there—and there's a complete lack of any drunks. While chatting with the bartender, she spots someone who looks out of place—not only is he an elf in a town populated almost exclusively by humans, but he is dressed immaculately in a stylish white suit, sharply contrasting with the well-worn clothes of the villagers. He sits alone, vibrant orange hair half-obscuring the scowl on his face, nursing a pint of the local grog._

 _When they meet back up with Oobleck, he's able to corroborate their findings, his brow furrowing with worry at Ember's description of the out-of-place elf in the creepily happy town. "Let's move on, but if you see him again do let me know as soon as possible."_

 _The five of them make their way out of town and into the wilds._

There was a clattering of dice from Velvet. "Doctor Oobleck draws your attention to a wolf-like creature in front of you. As he's explaining the creature, five more join the first—who then turn towards you." She grinned. "Roll initiative!"

Yang let out a whoop. "First encounter!"

Ruby actually bounced out of her seat as Velvet opened the ornate lid of her box with a theatrical flourish. "Oh my god, you have _so many miniatures_!"

Velvet grinned. "The benefits of majoring in materials engineering with access to a 3D printing lab!"

"Hey, stop drooling and roll your initiative!" Yang called across the table.

"Speaking of initiative," Velvet tried to corral the hyperactive player, "make sure you call out your rolls in the same order so I can track them. Let's just start at my left and go clockwise: Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang."

"Uh..." Ruby tried to catch up. "15. Oh, wait, no... 17!"

"20?" Weiss sounded slightly unsure.

Blake glanced over Weiss' character sheet and gave a nod before turning to her own sheet. "19."

"12," grumbled Yang.

"Myrtle's up first," Velvet prompted as she pulled some grimm miniatures out of her box and assembled them around the party member tokens.

"Hey, what's Oobleck doing?" interrupted Ruby.

 _A blur of green moves towards the rear of the party, well away from the gathering monsters. "Show me what you're capable of! I'll just be taking notes on the creatures of grimm from over here. Hrm... how fascinating!"_

Blake smiled to herself when she noticed the telltale crease in Weiss' brow that indicated otherwise well-hidden nervousness. "It'll be fine. It's just a warm-up fight," she whispered.

The first round went smoothly, though Blake was extra-attentive towards helping Weiss. For the second round, Weiss insisted on doing it without help. She managed just fine, though she was only half paying attention to the other players' turns as she fretted about the mechanics of casting spells. By the fourth round she was barely hesitating as she slung a small orb of acid at a grimm.

* * *

The fight was nearing its end when Fox sauntered into the living room and stopped behind Velvet as she rolled for an attack on Ember with the final remaining grimm. "Having fun?" he asked the group. He smiled at the enthusiastic affirmation from half the table and the quieter affirmation from the other.

Velvet reached for his hand as she turned to Yang. "25 to hit?"

Yang grabbed her pencil in anticipation for marking down the drop in HP as she grumbled, "Hits."

"Velvet, Velvet, Velvet," Fox cut in, voice chiding, as he leaned down to peer at the die. "You rolled a _critical failure_."

"Fox! Don't do that!" The irritation in Velvet's tone was sharp and angry.

" _What_?!" shouted Yang, slamming her fists on the table.

"M-maybe she just saw it wrong?" Ruby asked at the same time, her naïve optimism palpable.

Yang was nearly out of her seat in rage. "Velvet!" she growled, "you can't _lie_ about a dice roll!"

" _Die_ roll, singular," muttered Weiss as she glared at Velvet before noticing that Blake was curiously hunched over the table, face hidden in her hands. "Blake?" Concerned, she laid her hand on a trembling shoulder. "What's wrong?"

What sounded suspiciously like a giggle emanated from her girlfriend. "Oh my god, you guys." Blake finally looked up with mirthful tears in her eyes. " _She_ didn't see it wrong. _Fox_ , though, he's _blind_."

The only sound was Velvet's quiet growl as the rest of the players processed what had happened.

Yang smiled sheepishly. "Oh. Right. I knew that..." She looked towards Velvet. "Sorry for yelling at you?"

"The only apology I want to hear is from a certain _Fox Alistair_." She turned to the person in question. "You _know_ I'm glaring at you, mister."

Fox smirked as he laid a kiss on Velvet's temple. "Sorry!" he snickered, not sounding sorry at all. "I'll leave you all to your game." He gave a jaunty salute to the party. "See you later!"

Velvet turned back to the party with a huff. "Ember, you take 5 points of damage. Rose, you're up next."

"23 to hit?" Ruby asked, knowing full well that the grimm's AC was in the high teens.

"Of course it hits. With your build, you probably don't even need to roll damage."

"But I want to hear a super awesome description of how I kill the final grimm!" She beamed at her d6 rolls. "22 damage!"

Velvet sighed.

 _Rose's scythe glints in the sunlight as she strikes a mighty blow, shearing through the monster's meager defenses—the bony armor plating on the grimm crumples like paper beneath the edge of the weapon. Its toothy maw is locked open as if howling in pain, but no noise issues forth. The momentum carries the wickedly curved blade clean through the black body, rending the creature asunder. The two halves of the body fall to the ground with heavy thumps as silence returns to the forest._

Ruby smiled contentedly at the DM's dramatization.

"It would have been real funny if you rolled like a 2 for damage," Yang snickered.

"Not possible!" Ruby shot back with fiery indignation, "with 2d6 as the base damage on my scythe, my Strength modifier alone adds 5, my class bonuses add—"

"Oh god, no, spare us the details!" moaned Yang.

Both Blake and Weiss shot her a look as if to say, "You started it!"

Velvet cleared her throat and removed the extraneous miniatures from the board as she made a few additional dice rolls. "You arrive at the mine without further incident." She sketched out the entrance on one end of the map, just wide enough for them to enter single file.

 _Rough-hewn timber frames the small opening cut into the mountain face. Sunlight barely illuminates the first dozen feet of the tunnel, and the absence of torches suggests that the mine has been abandoned._

"Give me an INT check."

Dice bounced across the table, and Blake let out a long groan.

"16."

"19."

"Critical failure."

Yang patted Blake on the shoulder. "Thanks for making me feel better about my 5!"

 _Rose and Myrtle notice that the surrounds are free of debris and the earthen floor is devoid of wildlife tracks—it all looks too clean to have been abandoned. Shroud is too busy being distracted by a chipmunk to be useful, and Ember has found some pretty rocks that she's_ pretty sure _she shouldn't lick. Doctor Oobleck launches into an excited exposition about their findings, even discussing the mineral content of the "pretty rocks" that Ember had been staring at, though he pointedly ignores the chipmunk._

"And Blake?" Velvet's lip twitched as she tried to suppress a smirk. "Give me a Will save."

"Seriously?" Blake huffed and the DM merely nodded. "Fine! 15."

 _The adventurers manage to divert Shroud's attention away from the chipmunk and back to the quest. She glares at the little furry critter as it blithely scampers up a tree and disappears into the foliage._

 _Shroud takes point to scout ahead with her darkvision while Myrtle casts a Light cantrip and Rose strikes a sunrod along the rough wall of the tunnel, illuminating a wide swath of passage around her._

"Sunrod?" Weiss asked, reaching for the _Player's Handbook_.

Ruby started to launch into a detailed explanation of the device, but Blake cut her off. "It's essentially a glowstick."

 _Ember hums an ominous tune as they move deeper into the mountain until the only light they can see is what they carry with them._


	2. Never Split

_The mine is unremarkable: the floor maintains a steady decline and the uniformly placed timbers supporting the roof of the tunnel look dusty but robust. Faint ruts worn by wheelbarrows are visible in the rock floor, but the party sees nothing else worth noting. They all slow as they approach a bend in the tunnel. The path, up to this point, has been arrow-straight._

"Spot checks, please. If anyone's got a higher Knowledge: Dungeoneering or Geography, use that instead."

"Faiiiiled," whined Ruby.

"17."

"29."

"24."

" _29_ , you said?" Velvet asked Blake.

She nodded in response, then paused. "Velvet, your ear's twitching." Blake knew that tell. The party must have missed something big, but if a 29 wasn't enough to spot it then pushing the issue wouldn't do much.

"Is it?" The DM sounded nonchalant.

 _Rose is seized by a sneezing fit and is incapable of noticing_ anything _. Shroud and Ember identify the source of her troubles: some crates of red Dust stacked against the tunnel wall, just past the bend. A few have been prised open, some of their contents wafting in the air, but a half-dozen of them still look sealed. A length of fuse is coiled behind one loose crate lid._

 _Everyone but Rose—who's still sneezing—notices distinct changes in the tunnel construction. Makeshift torches are set in hacked-out niches haphazardly scattered along the mine shaft. Several have burned out and have yet to be replaced. The rock floor is less worn and the walls look hastily-cut and uneven. Ember glances suspiciously at the next set of timber supports: unlike the sturdy beams near the head of the tunnel, these look far too rickety to properly hold up the ceiling and they're spaced further and further apart as the party moves deeper._

Velvet looked at Yang preemptively. "No OSHA jokes."

Yang's expression made it clear that was exactly what she was planning, but—mercifully—she kept her mouth shut.

"So... what's Oobleck doing?" Ruby wondered aloud.

The sudden shuffling behind the DM screen suggested that Velvet had forgotten to keep track herself. "The Doctor—" she huffed in exasperation at the results of her dice rolls, "is taking meticulous notes on some 'pretty rocks' scattered along the floor of the mine shaft."

 _The party advances down the newer section of the mine shaft at a slower pace, each of them tense with alertness. Before long, Shroud materializes out of the shadows and gestures for everyone to stop. She's spotted a small group of White Fang ahead. If they can sneak up quietly, they can surprise the enemy._

 _"I can cast Silence on you and you can move forward, preventing any sound from coming from them when you sneak attack, then the rest of us can follow behind," Rose offers._

 _"Give me twelve seconds before you follow," Shroud whispers back, pulling out her crossbow._

 _With a gesture and a barely audible word, an eerie quiet falls over the group—their armor stops creaking and when Myrtle opens her mouth to ask a question, no sound comes out._

 _The cat faunus presses forward, taking the area of silence with her._

 _"How did you know to prepare_ that _spell?" Myrtle asks in disbelief as her voice returns._

 _Rose just shrugs. "Seemed like a decent idea since we're trying to keep things under wraps."_

 _Several long moments later, they follow Shroud's path around the corner. She'd already taken out two of the grunts, and is fighting a third, while a fourth is unsuccessfully attempting to cast a spell._

 _Myrtle, also restricted by Rose's spell, fires a crossbow bolt at the other spellcaster, who staggers back, but doesn't go down._

 _Blithely unaware of the magical silence, Oobleck walks towards the fight—his lips moving a mile a minute—as he starts up another lecture. He draws everyone's attention, only to cause them to throw their hands up in frustration as he wanders off to study an inscription on the cave wall._

"Is he going to do _anything_ useful?" Yang demanded.

Velvet looked steadily at Yang. "The Doctor picks up a rock with great gravitas... and _licks_ it."

There was a thud as Yang banged her head against the table in a fit of pique. Blake looked ready to join her while Weiss and Ruby shared a smile.

 _Shroud finishes off the grunt she had already injured before moving out of Rose's line of fire to allow her to take out the final combatant._

 _Taking advantage of the spell's duration, they scour the area thoroughly for additional enemies and any traps in the immediate vicinity._

 _The artificial quiet is shattered as Oobleck becomes audible mid-word, signaling the end of the time limit. They ignore his monologue in favor of searching for anything of value on the White Fang grunts, only looking up when he goes silent again, half-wondering if something had come up behind them and killed him._

 _But it isn't anything so extreme: he is staring down at a handpick, studying it closely before resuming his lecture, "This doesn't make any sense. While far from the quality that the Guild provides to its members, these are, in fact, archaeological tools—which are not the sort of thing I would expect_ miners _to possess. No, this is for delicate work."_

 _He looks closer at the cavern wall in front of him, running his hand over a nearly invisible change in the rock face. Waving Myrtle closer, he adjusts his glasses._

 _"What is it, Doctor?" she asks._

 _"This..." He shakes his head and moves back down the cavern, kneeling to study a small section of wall that, while the same color, is shinier than the surrounding rock. "This is_ organic _."_

"But is it _certified_ organic?" Yang muttered under her breath, earning a glare from the two faunus at the table.

 _There's a repeating pattern just barely visible in the uncovered sections that's reminiscent of scales. Oobleck runs a finger along the surface with the utmost delicacy, then turns to the group. "_ This _is a dragon," he murmurs._

 _The rest of them step back in unison. "_ What _?!" Myrtle asks, incredulously._

 _"THIS IS A DRAGON!"_

Ruby recovered from her shock first and turned to the DM with a grin. "So, Velvet... where are the dwarves? And hobbits?"

 _"Unearthing a dragon is delicate work indeed..." the Doctor continues on, pointedly ignoring the interruption. "Why, look at—"_

 _Shroud takes the opportunity to skip the lecture and scout out the light she's seen from the next room up. Within moments she rushes back into the cavern, having apparently decided to forgo stealth for speed. With a frantic wave of her hand, she signals for everyone to follow her quickly. She leads them to a tiny offshoot of a cavern up ahead of where they were, the space lit by the afternoon sun. Every flat surface is covered in pooling wax and smoldering wicks, and the flickering of a few dozen candles guttering low triggers urgency in the party: whatever happened here had been set in motion hours ago. They're_ late.

 _In an alcove to their left, a dragon skull—bigger than any they'd ever seen—sits nestled in the wax. An altar dominates the middle of the space with a carving of a five-pointed star made of black, blue, green, red, and white dragon heads. Everything is covered in a thin film of a sticky, rust-colored substance, and the air shimmers with the power radiating off runes etched into the stone._

 _"Kord bless," Rose breathes, taking a step closer to the perverse altar. "Tiamat—the goddess of chromatic dragons."_

Blake leaned over to whisper in Weiss' ear. "Chromatics are evil; metallic ones are good, with little to no exception."

 _"That's... not good." Oobleck steps closer, studying the runes and glyphs covering the altar and surrounding walls._

 _Myrtle reaches out as if to touch one and then thinks better of it. "Someone damaged these—those are tool marks. The runes look like they were once some sort of modified Sleep spell."_

 _"And this," Rose gestures to a complex diagram that is half-concealed behind the altar. "Looks like some sort of divine ritual—extremely powerful; it's not anything I'm familiar with."_

 _Oobleck frowns. "Well, that's because that's part of a Wish spell! Immensely powerful, yes—it's rumored even Guildmaster Ozpin has only ever cast it once—but it is arcane in origin, not divine. Though, why would an_ arcane _spell be set up in a shrine to a_ divinity _?"_

 _Ember throws her hands up in frustration. "This doesn't make sense!"_

 _"Wait—they're not trying to wake the_ dragon _up,_ _are they?" Shroud asks, horror creeping into her voice._

 _Oobleck straightens abruptly with a too-loud "Of course!" He darts around the room as he speaks, gesticulating wildly. "Of course that's what they're trying to do—a powerful dragon was terrorizing the area and so it was put to sleep through magical means—which, as you noted, Myrtle, are now_ damaged—" he waves a hand towards the defaced runes without a pause, " _and then, as the years passed, the beast became little more than a legend of a powerful being—our friends in the White Fang have likely been trying to unearth the creature in preparation of waking it up through an even more powerful magical ritual—seemingly both arcane and divine in origin—possibly in hopes of controlling the creature or having it finish what it started all those years ago."_

"Did you _breathe_ during that?" Yang asked Velvet, who merely took another sip of Red Bull before wrapping up the speech from Oobleck.

 _"Guildmaster Ozpin must be informed of this immediately; we may be too late—you four need to head back to the city as quickly as you can; I will stay behind to study the remains of the ancient spells and try to undo the damage they've already done."_

* * *

They took a moment to stretch and refill drinks before settling back at their seats to make their way out of the mine. There was a loud pop as Yang cracked open a beer with a gap in her prosthetic joints.

Blake looked at her curiously. "Should you be doing that?"

"It's durable enough to handle some pull-tabs." Yang shrugged as she took a swig.

"I thought you said to never split the party?" Weiss asked the table in general, even as she moved her white token to follow the rest of them.

"He's an NPC, he doesn't count," Ruby said, moving her token out towards the middle of the map.

"Wait, Ruby don't—"

 _Shroud's warning came too late, however, and Rose surges forward into an area of the cavern they hadn't searched earlier, tripping an unseen Alarm. The entire room fills with the din of ringing bells._

 _A single White Fang grunt comes out to investigate—shouting to his friends when he sees the four of them._

Velvet stood and set out more miniatures.

" _Now_ the die is cast," Weiss commented, looking pointedly at Yang and tossing a d20 across the table.

Blake eyed the distinctly colored figure positioned at the front of the grouping. "That one must be some sort of mini-boss."

 _A young female elf emerges from the shadows, with a half-dozen White Fang members in her wake. Even for an elf, she's on the short side._

"Sounds more like a _mini_ mini-boss," Yang muttered under her breath. She dodged the incoming popcorn kernel from Ruby.

"She looks wildly out of place—dressed in a corset and pantsuit in pastel pink, brown, and white." Velvet pointed at the token in question that was, in fact, a mix of those three colors. "She doesn't appear to be armed; she's only carrying a parasol." She turned to the players. "What did everyone get for initiative?"

"16!" Ruby leaned in closer to study the token. "That's so cool! How did you get it to look like that?"

Velvet let out a small laugh. "Printing error, actually. The elven warrior's shield ended up looking more like a lace parasol when the nozzles went wonky. But Neopolitan—" she gestured at the miniature, "has become one of my favorite tokens!" She turned to Weiss for the rest of the initiative results.

"13..."

"27!"

"18."

"Okay: enemy leader first, Blake, Yang, grunts, Ruby, then Weiss."

The four of them exchanged a look—it was the first time that campaign that someone had managed to get the drop on Blake's character.

 _The elf saunters towards the four of them, tactically positioning herself next to Ember and does nothing more._

 _Shroud lets out a low curse and moves closer to flank the elf, who looks over her shoulder with a cheeky smile and swings her parasol at Shroud, who barely manages to duck in time. She slips in with her kusari-gama and—_

"Wait, are you adding a flanking bonus to that 23 to hit?" Velvet asked, peering over the DM's screen to look at the placement of their tokens.

Blake looked at the map where "Shroud" and "Ember" were clearly flanking the enemy. "Yes...?"

"Right. Correction: that missed."

Blake studied the tokens—her black one was opposite the enemy from Yang's yellow one. "Should I _not_ be adding the flanking bonus?" she asked, knowing that Velvet wouldn't answer that.

"You're flanking Neo, aren't you?" Velvet asked cryptically, then prompted, "Yang, your turn," when she made no move to roll, having also become distracted by the question of whether to add the additional two to hit.

 _Ember steps forward slightly to deliver a Flurry of Blows—right fist connecting solidly with the elf's jaw but the left missing by a wide margin. The rest of the members of the White Fang close the distance, one heading towards Myrtle, but the majority of them focus in on the main combat._

Velvet scowled down at her dice. "The White Fang grunts _all_ missed. Okay, everyone—"

"Velveeeeet," whined Ruby, "at least describe how they whiffed! C'mon, this is a _role playing game_!"

"Says the little munchkin!" The DM let out an exasperated groan. " _Fine_."

 _Two White Fang grunts, armed with bows and arrows, manage to miss their targets by quite frankly embarrassing margins given their proximity. One swings a halberd in a wide overhead strike, but only manages to embed the axehead in a wooden truss above. Another, twirling a large mace, finds his powers of depth perception failing him, missing Myrtle by a good three feet and nearly maiming another grunt on the backswing. Grunt Number Five wields a pair of menacing daggers, which do little more than create a light breeze in Ember's_ very _general vicinity._

"The _sixth,_ wielding an unremarkable long sword..." Velvet sounded positively drained at this point, but Ruby still looked on expectantly. "He... um... swings and misses."

Yang let out an amused snort at the disappointment that flooded her sister's face.

" _Now_ , everyone, roll a Spot check." Even Weiss groaned at that, having quickly learned to hate those words.

"21!"

"13."

"22."

"18?"

"All right. Rose and Shroud notice shifting shadows at the far end of the tunnel—up towards the entrance. It seems as though another group is coming towards you." Velvet added a single token to the side of the map that indicated the mine's entrance.

Ruby studied the table. "I could move forward, see what's going on," she said, tracing a potential path with her finger. It would provoke at _least_ two attacks of opportunity.

"No!" shouted the other three.

Blake smiled when she heard Weiss join in. She'd known Weiss would have no trouble getting the hang of things.

"Never split the party!" Yang admonished. "That's the fastest way to get us _all_ killed."

"Ruby, it's your turn."

 _Rose spares one last glance down the tunnel at the incoming foes but focuses on the battle directly in front of her. Quickly darting forward, she swings her massive scythe, yelling triumphantly when the White Fang grunt falls to a single strike. A quick ninety-degree turn to the right and she takes down the next without a second thought._

Weiss frowned at her spell sheet. With an additional fight looming, it wouldn't do to burn all her high-level spells right away—not that she should be firing into the melee unless she was certain she would hit only the enemy.

Blake leaned over and pointed at "Wand of Magic Missile (7th)" on Myrtle's character sheet when she saw Weiss floundering over spells. "It doesn't do a lot of damage, but it can't miss and it won't use up your spell slots."

 _Myrtle draws and brandishes the wand, saying a word that makes the air around her shimmer, and four bolts fly forth, unerringly finding their elven target who neatly dodges Shroud's kusari-gama a moment later._

 _Shroud merely frowns, but Ember growls in frustration. "Hold_ still _!"_

 _But the elf just gives that same cheeky smile and adds a sly wink as she smacks Ember's head with her parasol. In retaliation, Ember surges forward... and trips over her own feet, falling flat on her face._

"Seriously?" Yang griped, staring down at the d20 that had betrayed her twice in a row.

Velvet hid a smile behind one hand. "Could be worse, I once was in a party where someone rolled so many 1s in a row they accidentally opened a portal to another dimension. We had a masked woman dressed in red and black armor and wielding a katana showing up to save—or attack—us randomly the rest of the campaign." She moved the tokens of the remaining grunts to their new locations and added a few more at the tunnel entrance before beginning her own rolls. "Weiss, does 22 hit?"

She flinched. "It does."

Velvet went back to scowling at her dice. "4 damage."

Weiss let out a sigh of relief. "That's not so bad."

"Blake—17 doesn't hit, does it?"

"Nope," came the smug reply.

She scowled again. "Okay, Ruby."

 _Rose closes distance to the elf and manages a devastating blow. She shakes her head as if dazed by the attack._

"Wait, I thought you said 23 didn't hit a moment ago," Blake asked, a touch indignantly.

"Mmm, no, _your_ 23 didn't hit." Velvet clarified.

Blake's eyes narrowed. "She's a _rogue_?" If she was, she was a high-level one if Blake wasn't able to flank her, thus losing the associated attack bonus.

"Could also be a barbarian," Ruby pointed out. "They get that bonus at level 5."

Velvet just shrugged. "Weiss?"

 _Myrtle moves five feet back and casts Scorching Ray, downing another White Fang grunt and injuring a second. Shroud manages to draw a little more blood from the elf and then steps away, trying to lure her from Ember's prone form while the monk elects to hold off on her action for the time being._

Velvet rolled a couple of dice.

 _The elf looks around and studies Ember for a moment and then smiles. She twists the parasol and a wand comes out of the handle, which she waves. A moment later she disappears—her image shattering into a thousand pieces like glass._

"No! Not the loot!" Ruby bemoaned the loss.

Weiss' brow furrowed and she flipped through the _Player's Handbook._ "Did she say anything? Did I recognize the spell?"

"She didn't say anything, just waved the wand and disappeared."

"But illusion spells require a verbal component, don't they?" She had stopped in the Feats chapter and was studying the rules on how to cast a silent spell.

"Illusion spells _do_ , but who said it was an illusion spell?" Velvet asked, ear twitching again. "Yang? Your turn."

Blake leaned over to Weiss. "How do you even _know_ that? Didn't I tell you _not_ to memorize the handbook?" she teased.

"I didn't read it cover-to-cover," Weiss sniffed. "I was just very thorough in reading the _relevant_ parts."

There were still two low-level grunts in the immediate vicinity—and another group no more than two rounds away.

 _No longer threatened, Ember scrambles to her feet, then moves around to help Rose flank one of the remaining grunts._

 _The one between them swings with all his might at Rose, but barely gets through her chainmail, leaving little more than a scratch along her side. The other closes distance on Shroud, who dodges his clumsy blow._

 _Rose, muttering under her breath about not needing the help from Ember, easily slices through the grunt's armor, felling him with a second solid hit from her scythe._

Engrossed in a spell description, Weiss didn't notice it was her turn until Blake nudged her. "I'm going to cast Glitterdust."

"Glitterdust?" Yang asked as Weiss leaned over the table to point on the map where she wanted to aim her spell: right in the middle of the newest batch of White Fang combatants.

"It'll outline any invisible creatures in the area. I figure our short friend can't be much further than here, based on movement speeds for medium creatures."

"Did you account for a speed bonus if she's a barbarian?" Ruby seemed doggedly determined to pin that particular class on the elf.

"I can't account for every possibility—it only has a ten foot radius. I'm thinking that Blake's assessment is more likely since she seemed to use a wand." She looked up at Velvet. "The spell's got a Will save against blindness as well as a massive hide penalty."

Blake shuddered. "Keep it away from me!"

Velvet nodded, picking up her dice. "DC?"

"16."

 _A golden orb speeds towards its destination, exploding some distance down the tunnel, covering everything in a ten-foot radius in a fine mist of gold light that clings to anything it touches. Two of the grunts stumble back, scrubbing at their masks in a futile effort to restore their sight._

Weiss looked up at Velvet expectantly.

"Sorry, Weiss, nothing new."

She slumped back into her seat.

"That was a really good idea," Blake reassured her.

"I hope she comes back; I want what she was carrying," Ruby muttered.

Yang reached across the table and snagged Rose's character sheet. "You probably can't even use it!"

"I have ranks in Use Magic Device!" She tried—and failed—to reach the paper. "Yaaang, give it back!"

Yang passed the sheet over with a roll of her eyes.

"Blake, your turn," Velvet said, shaking her head at their antics.

 _Shroud gives the sparkly grunts a sidelong glance, opting to let them come to the party rather than moving out to meet them. She focuses, instead, on the remaining grunt in front of her. Having been injured once already by Myrtle, he was easy enough to take down with her kusari-gama. She hesitates a moment, then moves forward in preparation of the next fight, the other three following shortly after._

* * *

 _The sound of heavy footsteps grows louder, signaling the White Fang lieutenant's approach. He towers over even the tallest of the grunts fanned out behind him. Though menacing in stature, the effect is greatly lessened by the soft, shimmering gold sparkles that cling to every inch of uniform and skin. He raises his chainsaw and fires it up, but the ominous whirring noise is punctuated by the occasional splutter as motes of iridescent powder shoot out from the spinning teeth. "Finally, I get to kill a Schnee..."_

Ruby raised an eyebrow. "Is... is that _Yatsu's_ voice?"

The groan from the couches confirmed that it was.

"And why am _I_ being dragged into this?" Weiss added indignantly.

"'Cause you covered him in _glitter_?" snickered Yang.

The DM squeaked in startlement as she frantically flipped back and forth between several sheets of notes. "Bloody hell, I'm sorry, I've got the wrong dialogue for this scene. This is from... uh, a White Fang versus SDC storyline..." Velvet trailed off as she shrank under Blake's withering look.

"It's okay, I know the SDC is a boogeyman for faunus everywhere." Weiss managed a small smile before bringing them back to the issue at hand. "But that doesn't explain why Yatsuhashi's an evil henchman."

Blake broke from her attempts to set Velvet on fire with her eyes and cracked a smile. "It's a pretty good story."

Yang was grinning in anticipation. "I wanna hear!"

This time, Velvet's groan matched Yatsuhashi's.

"Velvs was having a hard time reaching equipment on a high shelf in the lab and Yatsu had tried to help by picking her up. She struggled, he dropped her—accidentally copping a feel in the process, and she was offended about the entire affair. He ended up taking her out to lunch to apologize, and they started dating soon thereafter." Blake smiled at the memory. "They've been together since, but she trots out the 'Banesaw' character frequently as a running joke."

Yang's expression was nearly beatific as Blake wrapped up the story. "So you're telling me that Yatsu picked Velvs up and then _picked her up_?" Blond eyebrows waggled salaciously. A jelly bean and three popcorn kernels flew at Yang in response. She managed to catch the candy in her mouth and deflected the rest with her mechanical hand. "Thanks guys!"

"So, same initiative order for the party as the previous encounter," Velvet began briskly, trying to steer the conversation back to the game as she rolled for the incoming combatants. "Blake, Yang, and Ruby have already gone this round, so the grunts, Weiss, and then Banesaw are up next."

 _The Blinded grunts do little more than make a nuisance of themselves. Even their comrades are careful to step away from their flailing weapons before making attacks on the adventurers. Two of the grunts connect with their sword swings against Ember and Rose, and the third's arrow finds its mark in Myrtle. The fourth growls as his spear hits nothing but empty space where Shroud once was. The wizard takes the opportunity to send a pair of fiery rays at him, scorching cloth and skin alike._

 _Banesaw advances on Myrtle, driving her into a corner. In such close proximity, the wizard cannot cast spells without provoking an attack of opportunity so she turns to the only option she has: her quarterstaff. She deals piddling damage but manages to knock a bit of glitter off his shoulder. He merely laughs at the blow but frowns as he spots the cloud of gold sparkles floating off his uniform. With a roar, Banesaw grabs Myrtle by the face and slams her bodily into the rocky floor and succeeds in pinning her to the ground._

The DM smirked a little as she tipped the white token onto its side.

Weiss glanced up from the handbook in her lap with a look of consternation. "I have, like, negative strength. There's no way I can unpin myself..."

Velvet's smirk only intensified.

 _"Hrmph mrg?" the wizard calls out, but the plaintive plea is stifled by the giant hand over her mouth and most of her face. She settles for waving her arms._

 _Somehow her companions manage to understand her muffled cries and thrashing limbs. Myrtle is unable to see the attacks, but the sounds of a chain wrapping around her assailant and fists connecting solidly with flesh are unmistakable. The whistle of a massive blade sounds through the air and—finally!—the hand pinning her lets go, leaving her free to pick herself up._

 _Shroud is standing to one side, frowning at the faint clouds of glitter swirling around the retreating Banesaw as she unconsciously scrubs her hand against her own tunic. "Does this stuff go_ away _?"_

 _Myrtle grins to herself. "It will once you kill him!"_

 _"Consider it done!"_

 _With a slew of attacks that defy physics, Shroud lands several crippling hits against the White Fang lieutenant. An uppercut from Ember catches him in the stomach and a mighty headbutt connects with his chin with a sickening crunch. His giant form falls to the ground, neck twisted at an unnatural angle. "Kill steal!" Shroud grumbles._

 _Ember merely shrugs. "Did you want him down or not?"_

 _Shroud prods at the body, still faintly shimmering with gold iridescence. "Isn't this supposed to disappear once he's—"_

"Did you just manipulate me into killing Banesaw?" Blake hissed at Weiss, but only received a grin in reply.

 _The white-suited, orange-haired elf appears in a huff at the far end of the tunnel, taking in the situation with a sweeping glance. He looks angry, but not all that surprised, cursing loudly in an Elvish tongue. With a visible effort he clears the irritation from his face and turns towards the adventurers. "Not so pleased to make your acquaintance," he says with a bow as he doffs his hat, "I'm Torchwick, head of the... joint business venture here." Despite the chaos around him, he keeps his tone suave and self-assured, as if he's introducing himself at a cocktail party._

"Nice to meet you, too, Captain Exposition," replied Yang, teasingly.

Velvet bristled. "Listen here, we've got eighteen pages of character background to get through, so the less time you waste interrupting me, the better."

"Pff, nice try." Her eyes narrowed. "What's his favorite scotch?"

"Mr. Torchwick is more a _bourbon_ man, but if pressed, he prefers a Laphroaig single malt, 30 year-old, of course," Velvet answered without missing a beat.

Yang let out a defeated huff. "You win this round."

 _He rapidly barks commands to several of the grunts still in the melee, evidently no stranger to violence. "Take care of these kids. I have to find Neo."_

 _"We need to stop him!" Rose shouts._

 _"But we can't just go after him with these mobs still attacking us!" Ember grunts as she weathers a glancing blow from a mace._

 _The adventurers turn to look at Myrtle. "Got any area-of-effect spells?" asks Rose, casually parrying a sword swing with the haft of her scythe._

 _The wizard winces as an arrow nicks her leg. "I'm running low on higher level spell slots, and it looks like we've got_ at least _one more fight ahead of us..."_

 _Rose's gaze alights on the Dust crates stacked along the tunnel wall. "I've got an idea..."_

 _Shroud follows Rose's line of sight and picks up on the plan immediately. She runs one end of the fuse along the back of the boxes. Upending an open crate, she dumps the contents between the wall and the rest of the stack, over the cord. She unwinds the rest of the coil, backing away from the pile of Dust as she does before striking a tindertwig on the rough rock floor and lighting the makeshift incendiary._

Velvet stared pointedly at Blake, the faint drumming of fingers audible from behind the DM's screen.

" _What_?"

"I thought you said you weren't going to firebomb anything."

Blake's lips were pressed into a thin line as she fished for a response. "You're not _wrong_ ," she admitted reluctantly, "but this was _Ruby's_ idea. Now did I roll well enough for this to work?"

 _A sharp explosion tears through the mine shaft, followed by the rumbling of falling rocks and faint patter of debris. The large gout of flame takes out the final White Fang grunts, but Torchwick is outside the blast radius and remains unaffected. He wastes no time and runs towards the center of the chaos, away from the adventurers, and disappears. When the smoke clears, a new passage is visible. Those closest to the entrance, and Shroud, can see that the floor of the tunnel slopes upwards, and a faint light is visible in the distance._

 _Rose lags behind the group as they make their way through the gap._

 _"Rose!" Ember shouts when she notices._

 _"But he had a_ chainsaw _!" she whines, though she picks up the pace, regardless, to join the rest of the party._

* * *

 _Racing forward towards the sounds of machinery, the adventurers struggle to adjust to the brightness of natural light as as they peer out from the bowels of the mine into the sprawling open air cavern. Towards the mouth of the cave is a massive airship, larger than any vessel commonly used for transport. It is tethered loosely by several ropes._

Sweeping aside the tokens on the map, Velvet unrolled a large, laminated grid onto the table, the markered-in lines depicting a "room" vastly larger than the close quarters of the mines they had all gotten used to. The DM hurriedly placed down a dozen-odd tokens and markers indicating the positions of various people and items of interest, but the airship itself was large enough to be represented by a second gridded diagram layered atop the first.

"Make a Spot check."

"11."

"14."

"8."

There was a smattering of mockery for the scout of the party rolling so poorly, but it was silenced with a scowl.

"19!"

Velvet nodded approvingly.

 _The distinct orange hair and black hat of Torchwick is visible beyond the glare of the setting sun, gesturing with a cane towards the tethers. Several grunts, cowed by his shrieks of fury, scuttle off to do his bidding. Torchwick storms up the airship's ramp in a huff._

"Does it look like the airship is ready to take off?" asked Blake.

Velvet nodded. "Although still tethered down, the airship is clearly being prepared for departure. The ramp is being stowed—it could take off at any minute." She consulted her notes. "From your position, you're just under 200 feet away."

 _Shroud hunched low, keeping her body pressed against the cavern's rock. "We should try to sneak aboard," she murmurs. "There doesn't seem to be too many guards, so if we stick to the shadows, we should be able to make it to the underbelly without being spotted."_

 _Ember snorts at that. "Why bother? Thing doesn't look so tough. If we hit it with everything we've got we could probably cripple it right here."_

"Wait, are we supposed to get onto the airship or destroy it?" asked Weiss, turning to Velvet. The DM shrugged unhelpfully.

 _"We definitely need to get someone on that airship, before it's too late," whispers Rose. "I propose_ me _."_

Weiss didn't miss the way Blake, Yang, and Velvet all rolled their eyes, with varying degrees of discretion.

 _"There's not a lot of cover," murmurs Shroud. "And you're not exactly stealthy. I don't know if you can make it without being spotted and attacked."_

 _"That's why_ you guys _are going to create a distraction for me," Rose hurriedly explains, her tone suggesting the debate is already over. "Myrtle and Shroud, you two hang back and pin them down with ranged attacks. Ember, you'll move to those crates_ there _—try to keep their attention occupied."_

 _Ember blinks, stupefied at how Rose is trying to rope everyone into her ridiculous scheme._

 _"With the mooks focusing on you guys, I'll move in a wide arc along the cavern wall like so..."_ Ruby gestured to the grid, tracing a finger along the closest line on the map.

 _"What happens to those of us who stay behind?" asks Myrtle._

 _Rose shrugs. "Then I turn around and create a distraction for the rest of you to get aboard. Shouldn't be hard if it looks like we're flanking them. Or you could find some other way to follow me."_

 _"That's splitting the party!" hisses Ember._

"You can see several of the guylines being untied. The airship is already being buffeted slightly by the wind, it looks ready to sail at the drop of a hat."

 _"And what if we get stuck down—"_

"Only a single rope keeps the airship tethered to the ground at this point." Velvet moved several tokens on the map around, towards the final guyline. "The grunts are beginning to relax again, now that their job is almost done."

 _"We're not going to have time to board it," growls Shroud. "Does anyone see any other way we could follow—"_

 _"I can make it!" Rose insists. "Using Haste," she pulls a red bottle off her belt and waves it meaningfully, "I can sprint there in less than six seconds," she explains as she uncorks and chugs the potion._

"Ruby, _don't_!" Yang pleaded, but her sister was already sliding her avatar across the map.

 _Rose zooms towards the airship, moving at three times the speed of a normal human._ Velvet rolled a few dice behind her screen. _The White Fang mercenaries are immediately alerted to her presence and raise their weapons menacingly. One raises the alarm._

 _"_ Dust _!" Ember swears. "You two, try to suppress the grunts by the final rope, keep them from untethering." She balls her fist. "She's not getting away_ that _easily."_

"Torchwick is a _male_ dark elf, Yang," reminded Velvet, slightly puzzled. She thought this had been established already.

"I meant my _sister_ ," growled Yang in reply. She jabbed a finger angrily in Ruby's direction. "Never. Split. The. Party."

The clatter of dice filled the air.

 _Myrtle casts Color Spray in the direction of the two grunts nearest the tether and they stumble around dazed as a garish rainbow floods their vision._

 _Gasping for breath, Rose makes it to the airship, fingers curling around the rope netting the balloon._

 _Ember comes to within sixty feet of the base of the ropes, running at full-tilt directly towards the ship, but Rose is already clambering across the netting, making her way towards the starboard entrance._

 _Shroud looses a bolt, striking one of the dazed White Fang guards. He's gravely injured but still standing._

 _Apparently sensing Ember's plan, one of the grunts turns his back to the fight and sprints for the last rope keeping the airship in place. His sword is drawn, and there is no mistaking his intent to cleanly slice through the rope._

 _"M, freeze him!" Ember calls over the chaos._

 _Myrtle panics, casting the only thing that came to mind. "Ray of Frost!" she shouts, as a faint blue ray pings off the grunt's armor, having about as much effect as a hastily thrown ice cube._

 _Ember shoots Myrtle an incredulous look. "What was_ that _?!"_

 _"It's the only ice spell I have!"_

 _Ember continues sprinting towards the airship, but she can't hope to close the distance in time. "I'm not going to make it! Just stop that damn grunt however you can!"_

 _Furrowing her brow, Myrtle's fingers move in a blur of motion, the wizard muttering quietly as she prepares to cast Fireball—_

Velvet interrupted. "There's some half-finished constructions in the way and the engines and wind are kicking up a great deal of flying debris. You'll need to roll to hit: DC 15 and add your dex bonus and attack bonus. Do you still want to do it?"

 _The wizard narrows her eyes in determination and completes the incantation. A moment later a brilliant red beam streaks out from between her fingers, sizzling through the air as it is launched in the direction of the moving grunt. But she can only watch in horror as the ship bucks in a gust of wind and the guyline goes slack, putting it directly in the line of fire. The Fireball blossoms to life prematurely, catching the running grunt—as well as his two comrades—by surprise in the periphery of the flaming sphere, felling all th_ _ree immediately. It also incinerates the rope he was so desperately trying to sever and scorches a large section of the hull as the airship lurches forward, no longer held down by its moorings. Bone-chilling screeches fill the air._

Velvet slid the diagrammed airship towards the edge of the cavern.

 _"Guys?" Rose glances over her shoulder. She sees the other members of her party growing more distant with each passing second._

 _Running at a dead sprint, Ember nevertheless loses ground to the departing airship. Barring a miracle, she will never catch it before it clears the cavern's entrance._

 _Shroud hisses something under her breath and fires her crossbow at the last remaining White Fang grunt. He falls to the ground a moment later, a bolt protruding from his throat._

 _"Guys!"_

 _The airship clears the cavern, passing over the edge of a cliff. It is soon drifting over the forest, following the winding river below. The rest of the engines kick in a moment later and it lurches forward towards an unknown destination._

"Were we supposed to be on that?" Weiss asked the DM for the second time.

Velvet said nothing, and this time nobody missed the way her ear twitched.


	3. the Party

_Shroud stares at the departing airship for several long moments trying to determine its trajectory. It seems to be heading towards the town near the mine entrance, so the remainder of the party decide to return._

 _They encounter a few harried White Fang grunts scuttling around the mine. A few good Bluffs from Shroud send most of them packing without a fight, and a few solid strikes from Ember leave the rest unconscious. Once they emerge from the mine, Shroud sets out to scout for dangers in the forest. There are a few grimm that appear to be heading in the same direction, but they seem disinclined to attack the party. One particularly large bear grimm, however, wanders too close..._

Velvet dropped an ursa major miniature on the map, right next to Ember's rearguard position. "It gets a surprise attack on Ember, snarling as it swipes at her head."

Yang's gaze bored into Velvet. "Did it damage my hair?"

The DM blinked.

"Did. It. Damage. My. Hair."

Velvet frowned in confusion as she rolled a d20. "Yes, it did." A d6 clattered, too. "Four strands float to the ground."

 _"You... you_ monster _!" roars the monk as she goes berserk._

"O-okay," began Velvet, "the rest of you, please roll initiative."

"Nah," Blake waved her hand dismissively.

"No?" the DM was unsure about what was going on.

Weiss confirmed with a slight shake of her head. "We'll just watch the bloodbath from a safe distance."

Ruby scooped out a generous pile of popcorn before passing the tub to Weiss. "Can't miss the show!" she chirped as she dug in with gusto.

 _Ember throws herself at the giant ursa, getting in three solid blows before it can blink. Myrtle and Shroud wince at the sickening crack of the monster's jawbone. It swipes a second time at the monk, who backflips out of the way before closing distance again._

Yang looked down at the three d20s she had rolled with a "Huh."

Velvet took a peek at the dice—two 20s and a 19—as she leaned over to place a few additional grimm miniatures on the map.

"Can I rip the thing's jaw off and hit the rest of them with it?" Yang asked with a wild look in her eyes.

Velvet considered it for a moment. "You know what, sure."

Weiss blinked. "She's supposed to fight unarmed, though, right?"

"Yeah, but if you pass me the popcorn, I'll allow it." Velvet shrugged as she grinned at Yang. "This is getting pretty good."

 _Ember rips the lower jaw off the ursa major and cackles with bloodlust as its bellow of pain fades into a lingering death rattle, then turns to the rest of the advancing grimm, eyes red with rage. "What! You want some, too?!" she demands, stalking towards them, mandible in hand._

 _The first goes down with a tiny whimper, the teeth attached to the improvised weapon gouging half of its face to ribbons. The second visibly distorts in size before exploding, sending bits of grimm across the battlefield._

 _Shroud and Myrtle easily side-step the flying viscera, but the last monster isn't so lucky and is impaled by an armor spike._

 _Ember walks up to it and gives it a good kick, removing its head._

"Yang?" Ruby ventured, drawing her sister's attention, who had gotten to her feet at some point during her elaborate and _colorful_ description of how she killed the grimm. "I think it's dead."

" _Nobody_ touches my hair," Yang growled, stealing some popcorn from Velvet and settling back into her seat. "Anyway. What's next?" she asked brightly, as if her character weren't covered in blood and gore.

"And how exactly does _that_ qualify as something a _lawful neutral_ character would do?" Velvet inquired, mostly curious as to how Yang would justify it.

She tossed a piece of popcorn into the air, catching it in her mouth. "Personal code says no one touches my hair or _they die_. Plus, Samson did the exact same thing and he's a _judge_. He's _full_ of _law_!"

* * *

 _When they reach the settlement, the small town center is mostly in shambles. Amidst the wreckage stands a tall swordsman with horns protruding above his decorated White Fang half-mask. He leans over a fallen militiaman and his blood-red katana is raised for a coup de grâce._

 _Shroud leaps in to intervene, her weapon drawn._

 _Letting the hapless militiaman scramble away to safety, the swordsman turns towards the intruder. "Hello, my darling," he drawls._

Blake's look of suspicion instantly contorted into a blaze of anger as she pitched a d20 directly at the DM.

Velvet ducked smoothly, as if anticipating such a reaction. "Everyone, roll initiative." She looked at Blake with amusement. "If you have the dice to do it."

"There's more where that came from," she snapped, pulling a second die out of her bag.

As the initiatives were called out, Velvet made her own rolls. "Shroud, swordsman, Ember, Myrtle, and White Fang grunts," she announced once the dice settled.

 _As the party readies for battle, several more White Fang grunts emerge and join their leader. "Bring them to their knees!" the swordsman commands his underlings to attack the rest of the party with a wave of his katana._

 _Shroud barely registers their presence as she lunges at the swordsman, kusari-gama swinging. He parries deftly with a creepy smile tugging at his lips._

 _Ember and Myrtle are cut off by the advancing grunts. The adventurers unleash spells and strikes, bringing down two of the White Fang and opening up a gap in the line. The remaining grunts attack back, but do little damage._

 _Shroud disengages and disappears into the shadows. The swordsman leers at the retreating figure. "Running away again? Is that what you've become,_ my love _?_ A coward _?"_

 _"I'm. Not. Running." Shroud snarls as she locks blades with the swordsman._

 _"You. Will." he grits out as he knocks Shroud prone. He looms over her as he rants, "As I set out upon this world and deliver the justice mankind so greatly deserves, I will make it my mission to destroy—"_

"Velvet?" Blake's voice was quiet and steady as she interrupted the fictitious diatribe, but her ears were flat against her head and Weiss could see the white-knuckled fist she had clenched in her lap, blocked from everyone else's view by the table. "Velvs, could you tone it—tone _h-him_ —down a little?"

Weiss frowned. She'd heard that tiniest crack in her girlfriend's voice before, during a terse discussion about an abusive past relationship. Blake hadn't divulged many details at the time, but given Velvet's tendency to spin NPCs from real people, Weiss could guess what was going on. The sisters, however, looked mystified, but both intuited that this wasn't the time for nosy questions.

Velvet lowered her ears abashedly as she nodded in understanding.

Scooting her chair closer, Weiss reached for Blake's hand. It took several moments before she felt the fist relax and fingers uncoil. It would be mildly awkward for both of them to use their off-hands to manage their dice rolls and character sheets, but that was a small price to pay for the increased intimacy. "Perhaps next time," Weiss whispered, lifting their intertwined hands slightly, "we should switch sides so it'll be easier to write?"

Blake smiled and gave a small nod.

Velvet caught her eye. "I'm _really sorry_ ," she whispered as she rolled to hit.

 _The swordsman casually stabs Shroud in the stomach as she lays on the ground—_

Out of the corner of her vision, Weiss saw Blake's hand clutched to her side, just below the ribs. Where that scar lay. As she felt her girlfriend's hand tighten and heard a faint whimper, her own heart broke.

 _But the swordsman says nothing to the shadowdancer as he turns his attention to the rest of the party. "Feh!" he spits at Ember and Myrtle, "slavers and tyrants, the lot of you. There'll be no stopping the vengeful flames of revolution: I am the judge, jury, and_ executioner _of your abominable race!" Before he can attack anyone else, however, the rescued militiaman arrives with a few reinforcements and they engage the White Fang grunts, freeing the adventurers to focus on the main threat. Seeing the new combatants, the swordsman increases the intensity of his assault._

Weiss was deeply engrossed in the _Player's Handbook_ when Blake poked her sharply. "That's the _third_ time I've had to nudge you. What's so fascinating that it's worth nearly losing your turn over?" She cocked her head at the impatient DM glaring in their direction.

Weiss hid a smirk as she shook her head. " _Nothing_ , just trying to find a way to save you."

Blake gave her a knowing look. "I'll ask you about that 'nothing' later."

 _Dark energies swirl around Myrtle as she begins an arcane incantation. With a final, sharp gesture, the Phantasmal Killer is released. Though the swordsman's eyes are hidden by his mask, terror is written into every muscle as he freezes in the presence of the beast that invades his mind. The phantasm reaches out with a dire touch and he is unable to fully steel himself against his fears: though he avoids certain death, the horrifying visage is too much and he staggers mightily as his heart constricts in his chest and his mind splinters into a hundred shrieking shards._

 _Myrtle smiles grimly as the swordsman reels from the spell. Shroud takes the opportunity to pick herself up and consume a healing potion as Ember takes the heat, engaging the next attack. With Ray of Enfeeblement sapping the swordsman's strength, Ember and Shroud land solid hits and suffer little retaliation. He stumbles back as his coat begins to glisten with blood._

 _Facing a dwindling supply of spells, Myrtle is mostly reduced to firing Magic Missiles with her wand while her companions attack with blade and fists. As the battle wears on, the swordsman's anti-human invectives become sparser, replaced with pained grunts. He looks quite rough, but will continue to fight to his last breath._

 _Ember tries to move around the swordsman to allow Shroud to flank him, but the bull faunus is too quick, attacking her before she can even make it halfway._

They listened to the clatter of dice being rolled behind the DM's screen. Then they saw Velvet's brow furrow, as if disbelieving the results. Her finger quickly flipped through a few pages of the tome beside her, the tension building with each passing second. She glanced back at the dice, double-checking the results. Then she blinked.

"In one fluid motion, the swordsman's katana cuts through Ember's—" the clatter of a die sounded, and Velvet winced at the result. "—Ember's _right_ arm as if it was nothing, severing it above the elbow. The bloodied remains of her limb sails through the air, landing with a wet thud on the floor several feet away." Velvet paused. "Lose 33 HP and if that was yo— _Ember's_ dominant hand, remember to adjust your damage and attack rolls accordingly."

Several jaws dropped. Someone sniffled away tears. Yang's fingers curled around her character sheet and her wooden pencil creaked dangerously as her prosthetic hand tightened its vice-like grip.

 _The shock and trauma prove too much for Ember, the fearless monk slipping into unconsciousness a moment later._

Weiss looked momentarily concerned, for both Yang and Ember. She opted to try to help the former by asking a question about the latter. "Does this mean you have to make a Fortitude check to see if... if the stump gets infected?" It was an honest question, and drawing attention to the game's mechanics would—hopefully—remind everyone that this was just a story.

Yang bounced right back in spite of the grim turn of events. "Nah, I can't get sick—I'm a monk! Purity of Body, and all!" she declared with a preposterous shimmy of her hips.

Everyone snorted at that and the mood lifted slightly.

Blake turned to Weiss with a sober look. "Guess it's up to us?"

 _Though unsteady on his feet, the swordsman advances. His footsteps leave bloody prints, but he remains bull-headed and singularly focused on killing the remaining adventurers. He sneers at the wizard he's cornered, but her eyes glint in defiance as she grasps his arm with a Touch of Fatigue. Suddenly his sword feels ten times heavier and his feet are like lead. "A mere cantrip—" he laughs mirthlessly, but the rest of his sentence is cut short as his diminished reflexes fail to save him from a chain wrapping around his neck and a kusari-gama sinking deeply into his back. He can only gasp in pain as the blade twists between his ribs._

 _Myrtle and Shroud back away from the swordsman as he leans heavily on his katana, breath frothing blood across his lips. The wizard readies her wand and she can hear the chain of the kusari-gama being retracted for another strike. Scrabbling at the crumbling wall, the swordsman manages to draw himself to his full height, and he shifts his stance as if to charge—_

"He's fatigued, he can't charge!" Weiss hissed at the DM, but was cut short with a glare.

 _But before he can take another step forward, he sinks to his knees, his katana skittering uselessly across the ground. Another thump and he lays facedown and motionless, his mask shattering in pieces beside him._

 _The sudden stillness is stifling._

"Wow," said Ruby, finally breaking the silence. "Watching all that play out was _brutal_. I mean, compared to our earlier fights, that was like _super_ dark..."

* * *

The tension from the encounter lingered as the players took a breather. Ruby, for her part, fidgeted in her seat as she knew her turn was coming up, and she would be facing the dangers entirely _on her own_.

Blake squinted slightly, as if trying to work out a puzzle she alone could see. "Velvet?" She finally said, her voice only faintly audible over the sisters' bickering. "Exactly _how_ powerful did you make him?"

Velvet shrunk back, slumping in her seat so her eyes were only barely visible over the edge of her DM's screen. "Oh, you know, CR 14." She tucked her legs up on the chair as Blake sent her a withering glare. "What?" Velvet mumbled defensively. "He's scary! Besides," she added, "I expected this to be a full-party fight."

"So you just _had_ to use my abusive ex."

"Well, I thought you'd enjoy getting a chance to smear his face across the ground!"

"I _told_ Ruby not to split the—" Yang broke off as she processed the rest of the conversation. "Wait, he's a _real person_?" Suddenly a lot of things made sense. She watched similar realization, and horror, flash across her sister's face.

"Unfortunately," came the simultaneous reply from Blake and Velvet.

"Sorry my ex chopped off your arm," Blake said, shuffling in her seat slightly. _Yes_ , it wasn't _actually_ her fault, but the tangential connection between her romantic life and Yang's amputation was bad enough in a fictitious story, so the fact that Yang was also missing her right arm _in real life_ went several orders of magnitude beyond merely "awkward."

Yang shrugged, shoveling Cheetos into her mouth with her prosthetic hand. "Eh, I obviously wasn't too attached to it. 'Sides, you can't spell 'dismemberment' without 'Ember'!" She snickered to herself as everyone else stared slack-jawed.

Blake scowled, trying to smother Yang's self-satisfaction with scorn. "I retract my apology."

"So as I understand it," said Weiss, "the fictional version of your ex is a creepy sword-wielding psychopath with a megalomaniacal streak." She felt her hand twitch involuntarily.

Velvet and Blake exchanged glances. "Yes," replied Blake, carefully, "the _fictional_ version..."

Ruby and Yang looked alarmed while Weiss simply glowered. All three looked to Blake.

"He was detained by campus police several times for carrying a sword around, and was held overnight by the actual police after he violated the restraining order I had out."

"Last I heard, he still has that katana mounted on the wall," Velvet added.

"And I still have that restraining order."

Everyone at the table shuddered and Weiss tightened her grip on Blake's hand.

* * *

Velvet cleared the map and set the airship diagram back in the center, positioning Rose's token on the side she'd climbed up earlier. "All right, Ruby. Your turn."

 _(Meanwhile... and a few hundred feet above...)_

 _The airship's starboard hull is still smoking from the impact of the Fireball that had violently severed its final tether. A section of the structure is crumbling away, raining debris into the landscape below. The adventurers on the ground are too engrossed in their own fight to do more than spare the occasional glance up at the approaching airship, but they catch glimpses of a few black shapes emerging, blending into the settling dusk. Rose, however, gets a front-seat view of the griffons taking flight. From the gap in the hull, she can see cages of grimm filling the interior of the airship. Clinging to the netting with grimm in the sky seems like a poor idea, but when she tries to open the airship door, it is unyielding. With no other options, she climbs to the top of the vessel._

 _Eager to put more distance between herself and the flying grimm monstrosities, Rose tries to muscle open the only hatch she can find on top of the airship._

"Strength check, please."

Ruby looked at her character sheet and then up at Velvet. "Can I take 10?"

The DM shook her head.

"But I'm not in combat!"

"There are _griffons_ circling the airship and you know you're in for a _boss_ fight. I think that qualifies as 'threatened or distracted.'"

Ruby acquiesced with a sigh, immediately followed by a groan as her d20 came to a stop. "Arg! I wanted to take 10!"

Velvet didn't bother to conceal her grin.

 _After another minute of pounding, the hatch swings open with a creak audible even above the billowing winds. Rose's triumphant smirk vanishes when she realizes that it was opened from the_ inside _. She scrambles to put some distance between herself and the threshold as two menacing figures saunter out onto the hull. First out is the white-suited elf, twirling a cane between his fingers as he scowls, casting about for the source of the racket. The diminutive elf follows closely behind, one leg crossing leisurely in front of the other as if out for a stroll in the park._

Velvet pulled some clear risers from her box and placed three griffons at various heights scattered around the airship diagram, dwarfing the lone red token facing off against two mini-bosses.

Yang glared at Ruby. "What did we say about running off on your own?"

Ruby pulled her hood up and curled into her seat, refusing to look Yang in the eye. "'Don't,'" she mumbled, feeling like she was six years old again and being scolded by her bigger sister for doing something stupid.

"After you die, I'm going to spend the next month saying, 'I told you so.'"

 _"Another fresh-faced adventurer, eager to get her name chiseled into the Guild memorial wall. What is this, the third one this year?" asks Torchwick, sizing up Rose. His companion smiles predatorily but says nothing._

 _"What are you doing?" demands Rose, her eyes darting back and forth between her adversaries, who are slowly moving to flank her. "Transporting this many grimm into the city will destroy it!"_

 _"That's the plan!"_

 _With barely a moment's notice the elf points his cane at Rose, depressing an inlaid trigger to send a small projectile shooting in her direction._

 _The dart sank into Rose through a gap in her armor. Though it did little damage, she could feel the metal searing her flesh. She lets out a hiss of pain but manages to remain standing._

 _"But why? What do you get out of it?"_

"Roll a Sense Motive check?" Velvet asked.

Ruby grimaced as she rolled her d20. "8?" she supplied hesitantly, knowing it wouldn't get her anything.

"I mean, he's got _some_ reason for what he's doing, you figure that much," Velvet offered before slipping back into character.

 _"You're asking the wrong questions, kid!" replies Torchwick. "It's not what I have to_ gain _, it's that I can't afford to_ lose _!"_

 _Neo follows with a volley of melee attacks a moment later, and Rose barely manages to fend off grievous injury. The adventurer scurries back a moment later, doing her best to avoid being attacked by both elves simultaneously._

 _"I may be a gambling man, but even_ I _know that there are some bets you_ just don't take _." Roman continues monologuing even as Neo evaporates the distance Rose had tried to create._

Velvet looked slightly apologetic as she requested a Strength check from Ruby. "This was _also_ intended to be a full-party fight."

Ruby nodded, not meeting anyone's eyes. "16."

"She pushes you back five feet, which..." They all looked down on the map. It put Rose over the edge. "Make a Balance check."

"23?" Ruby asked, looking a little more hopeful.

 _The bloodthirsty assailant lands a series of blows against Rose, sending the guildsman teetering backwards, balanced precariously at the airship's edge._

 _"Like it or not, the people that hired me are going to change the world!_ You _can't stop 'em,_ I _can't stop 'em!"_

 _Neither of the elves attack Rose, as if pausing for dramatic effect. Neo's parasol transforms into a sword, pointed menacingly at Rose's throat, but she remains stock-still, as if waiting for an order. Several grimm swoop nearby overhead, apparently taking an interest in the skirmish. Rose glances around for anyone or anything that could be of use, but comes up blank._

 _"You know the old saying, 'If you can't beat 'em—'"_

 _Rose pulls herself up with one hand and grabs Neo's sword with the other, using her scythe and the elf to climb back onto the relative safety of the airship._

 _Neo pitches under Rose's weight, seeming to hold steady at first before suddenly losing her balance and toppling head-first over the side, careening towards the ground._

" _Neo!"_ The shout came from either Torchwick or Velvet: it was difficult to tell who was more distraught about their favorite elf assassin suddenly being eliminated.

 _Rose stands defiant before her would-be killer, resolve on her brow and fire in her eyes. "I don't care what you say! We will stop them and I will stop you! BET ON_ THAT _!"_

Blake and Weiss exchanged furtive glances as Ruby pounded the table, causing several tokens to briefly become airborne. Even Velvet seemed taken aback, shifting slightly in her seat, half-expecting Ruby to lunge at her. Blake caught Yang's mortified expression a moment later.

"I'm sorry, she... I don't know... watched a lot of anime as a kid?" Yang offered, as if that explained anything.

Ruby looked slightly embarrassed, but Velvet was quick to reassure her. "That was _fantastic_. If we were playing in 5e, that would have earned an Inspiration point. Mark it down on your character sheet: you'll get to re-roll a d20 once." An edge of malice worked its way into her grin. "Believe me, you'll need all the help you can get."

 _Torchwick easily dodges Rose's attacks, landing several of his own in return._ _"You wanna be a hero?!" he demands, "then play the part and_ die _like every other guildsman in history!"_

The players shared glances, concerned at just how into character Velvet getting as she shouted gleefully in her Torchwick voice. Whatever inhibitions had caused her to temper her adaptation of Blake's ex were gone, and her sense of drama was back with a vengeance now that someone was enthusiastically playing along.

"26 to hit?" Velvet asked, switching back to her neutral DM voice so effortlessly it gave the party whiplash.

Ruby looked at her AC and nodded glumly. "Hits."

"Take 15 damage." The chuckle that followed was just slightly more villainous than anyone else around the table was comfortable with. Ruby grumbled as she sullenly adjusted her HP.

" _As for me, I'll do what I do best: lie, steal, cheat, and_ survive _!_ "

Velvet moved the nearest griffon towards Ruby's token and smirked as she rolled her dice. The mirth evaporated as the clattering stopped. "Uh—" More clattering. Velvet now looked horrified. "The griffon... eats Torchwick whole."

Ruby's sigh of relief was the only sound as shock descended on the rest of the players. When the two mini-bosses had re-emerged, Blake had already consigned "Rose" to whatever afterlife Player Characters go to. Judging from the stunned expressions around the table, everyone else had been thinking the same thing

An angry growl and papers shuffling at the end of the table drew their attention. "There goes _that_ whole stack of prepared dialogue and scenarios!" exclaimed Velvet in a huff. "I never thought much about dice shaming photos, but I think these are bloody _cactus_ ," she fumed as she shoved a handful of d20s back into the pouch. Armed with new dice, she turned to her captive audience still surrounded by grimm tokens. "You're not entirely off the hook, yet."

Ruby squirmed in her seat. "I... cast Sanctuary on myself?" It was more of a question than a statement. "It'll stop them from attacking me as I move towards the hatch." She pointed to it on the airship diagram. The griffon that had landed to eat Torchwick stood between Rose and her avenue of escape.

"Saving throw?"

"Will save—DC 14. They can attack if they succeed."

Velvet rolled a few dice, keeping her face blank as she determined the exact results. "All right, you cast it. What do you do next?"

 _Rose whispers a final prayer to Kord as she bolts for the still-open hatch. The griffon turns its head to watch her go, lazily batting at the adventurer as she passes. She cries out in pain, but manages to drop into the body of the airship, slamming the hatch shut behind her._

 _She looks around for a hiding spot, grateful for the lack of White Fang in the immediate vicinity, and wedges herself between a crate and the wall to heal._

* * *

 _(Meanwhile... and a few hundred feet below...)_

 _Shroud co-opts a pair of guards into moving Ember to the temple for treatment and Myrtle converses with the rest of the town militia about the White Fang presence. A stranger joins them, addressing the wizard by name. "So you're Myrtle, eh? Barty—'scue me, 'Doctor' Oobleck—called me to this town once he finally figured out this wasn't another of Oz's milk runs."_

Yang and Ruby exchanged a look at the voice Velvet was using. It was _vaguely_ familiar but they couldn't quite place it.

 _Myrtle points to the approaching airship. "Our fellow guildsman was on that and it's full of White Fang members. Would you be able to help? We're tapped out."_

 _"Don't worry your little head, missy, I've gotcha covered."_

Yang's eyes narrowed and Weiss let out an indignant squawk at being called "missy."

 _Unaware of the fates of their leaders, the White Fang crew anchor the airship at the outskirts of the village. The crew begin disembarking a moment later, blissfully ignorant of the fact that their mission is already a failure._

 _When the engines shut down, Rose scrambles to get off the ship first, racing past the remaining White Fang grunts, who are too startled to react._

 _"Members of the White Fang," Rose declares, standing fearlessly in front of the inert airship. The haft of her scythe rests easily in her hands, the sun's last rays glistening off its crescent blade. She looks totally badass, and the White Fang grunts are_ definitely _quaking in their boots—_

" _I'll_ be the judge of that," Velvet cut in.

Ruby pouted, but did her best to ignore the interruption. " _Anyways," continues Rose, "as an initiated member of the Adventurers' Guild, I am sworn to protect life whenever I can, even the lives of killers and thieves. Lay down your weapons, and my justice will be merciful. Resist me, and justice will be_ swift _, justice will be_ painful _, and it will be—" she stumbles over her words and blurts out the first thing that comes to mind: "delicious!"_

"Delicious?" Velvet asked in disbelief.

Ruby tore her eyes away from the enticing tub of popcorn situated between Blake and Weiss and looked back at Velvet. "I panicked! I couldn't think of a different word!"

"Just make an Intimidate roll," pleaded Velvet, massaging her brow. Ruby let out a disaffected grunt at being interrupted twice in under a minute, but dutifully rolled her d20.

Yang snickered a little at the outcome and nudged Blake to pass the tub.

 _Several of the White Fang grunts shuffle awkwardly about, looking more concerned about hurting Rose's feelings than any threats she's making. One looks like he's suppressing a laugh, and only barely._

"Oh come on," groaned Ruby. Why did her Intimidate rolls _always_ end up this way? She even took ranks in it!

 _Rose growls, twirling her blade menacingly about her body. If the grunts will not accept her offer of mercy, then she will at least make this quick._

Velvet glanced at something behind her DM screen. "And all of a sudden, the White Fang minions really _are_ quaking in their boots. Their faces pale and their jaws drop open, swords and daggers falling to the grass with dull thuds."

"Wait, did Rose _actually_ Intimidate the enemies?" asked Weiss. "I thought you only got one chance with that skill?"

"Oh, it's not _Rose_ ," answered Velvet, a smile creeping across her face.

 _Rose finally realizes that the grunts aren't staring_ at _her but_ behind _her, and she spins about, breath catching in her throat as she does. On the rise of a small hill stands a menacing figure, silhouetted by the setting sun. The scythe he wields makes Rose's weapon look like a lowly farm tool, but he carries it effortlessly in one hand. His cape—tattered from bar fight and battlefield alike—flutters gently in the evening breeze._

 _"Between you and me," he growls, his voice low and grave, "I think you should take her up on that offer. Of the two of us, the little lady here seems_ far _more forgiving."_

Ruby half-leapt out of her chair, letting out a high-pitched "Thaaaaaat's my uncle!"

"That does sound a _lot_ like Uncle Qrow." Yang agreed, eyes glazing over as she lost herself in her memories. "Heh, if you had a drink to get in-character for him, it'd definitely be just whiskey in a—"

Yang turned to Velvet, who already had a flask raised to her mouth. Velvet froze—suddenly a deer in the headlights—taking in the table's expressions ranging from bewilderment to mild disgust. Her lips separated from the flask a moment later, and she looked at the container like it had somehow snuck up on her. She blushed scarlet, hurriedly placing the flask back behind her screen.

"How do you even have room for all those drinks?" asked Ruby, staring intensely at the DM's screen as if it concealed a real-life Bag of Holding.

"That's not important," replied Velvet, dismissing the question with an airy wave. "But what do you mean, ' _Uncle_ ' Qrow?"

"Um... he's our uncle?" Yang shrugged as if this was a self-evident truth.

Velvet stared at her, agog. "You're related to _Qrow Branwen_?" She looked a little horrified, then turned to face Ruby. "Suddenly, your recklessness makes sense..."

"I mean _technically_ he's not my _biological_ uncle, but you know, still family," clarified Ruby. "He did kind of help raise me."

Velvet giggled behind her screen. "I'm trying to imagine Mister Branwen babysitting you two and I just... can't."

"Wow, _Mister_ Branwen," repeated Yang, a derisive snort escaping her. "That must've driven him up the wall."

"Well, it's awkward to call your homeroom teacher 'Qrow,'" replied Velvet, defensively. "Though, admittedly, not as awkward as trying to cover up his hangover to the principal," she muttered.

Yang wasn't done snickering. "' _Mister Branwen_ ,' the principal says you shouldn't swear so much in class," she teased, contorting her voice into a teeth-gnashingly bad imitation of Velvet's accent. "' _Mister Branwen_ ,' the principal says you can't keep your whiskey flasks where students can find them. ' _Mister Branwen_ ,' the principal says you can't threaten the faculty with bodily harm."

Ruby descended into hysterics at Yang's impressions.

Velvet recovered from her embarrassment by delving back into narration.

 _A detachment of the local guard surround the prisoners, obviously relishing the prospect of some payback. The few White Fang grunts who were considering revising the terms of their surrender immediately stop when they notice the angry guildsmen watching them._

 _"And what's a pipsqueak like you doing on a vessel full of White Fang?" Qrow demands of Rose as he oversees the arrests._

 _Rose draws herself up to her full hei—_

"And entirely unimpressive height," Yang overrode her sister.

Ruby glared across the table at Yang. "Rose isn't short!"

Yang leaned over to grab Rose's character sheet again. "I don't believe you."

"She's five foot five!" Ruby protested as she slid the paper out of reach.

"That's _average_ for a human female," Velvet pointed out. "It's _definitely_ unimpressive though."

Blake cautiously glanced at her girlfriend as the rest of the table debated the semantics of the term "short." A rather bleak expression was starting to seep through Weiss' neutral facade as the argument dragged on.

Ruby pouted for a moment longer before continuing the discussion with Qrow.

 _"I'll have you know that I single-handedly took out_ both _of their leaders!" Rose says, trying to resist the urge to stand on her tiptoes._

 _"Did you, now?" Qrow is barely concealing a smile. "And how exactly did you manage that?"_

 _"Well, I knocked one off the top of the ship!"_

 _He takes a swig from his flask. "Did you see 'em die? Could have made it."_

 _"Well... no. But we were a couple hundred feet up! There's no way she could have survived that."_

 _"Rule one of combat, kid—they're not dead unless you see them die, and even then they can always be resurrected."_

"I _knew_ you were too attached to let her die like that," Blake muttered under her breath.

Velvet sat up straighter. "She had her Wand of Dimension Door. She easily could have made it!"

Blake grinned. "So she _is_ a rogue."

Velvet didn't dignify that with a response.

 _"And the other?"_

 _"I saw him die!" Rose insists._

 _Qrow just raises an eyebrow._

 _"Eaten by a griffon," she says as quickly as possible, half-muttered under her breath. "But he's_ definitely _dead!"_

Everyone turned to eye Velvet. "Yes, _he's_ actually dead," she confirmed, sadly. "Word of Dungeon Master."

 _"All right pipsqueak, go find the rest of your party, I'm sure they're worried about you. I'll deal with whatever's left scurrying around in here." Qrow climbs into the belly of the ship through the scorched hull._

 _"Be careful!" Rose calls out, walking back towards the ship after him. "They're really dangerous."_

 _Qrow pops his head back out and scoffs. "These things? Nah, they're in cages. It'll be like shooting fish in a barrel."_

 _The adventurers are reunited over Ember's cot in the local temple, exchanging hugs and congratulations and a few recriminations about "party splitting." Their respective brushes with death are hastily recounted, but more than anything, they're all looking forward to a good night's sleep._

 _Returning some time later from his mop-up work, Qrow leans in close to Ember as the village healer finishes checking her bandages. "I know some good clerics who can regenerate your arm back in the city. I can send word and Oz will have them ready by the time you arrive." At Ember's pensive silence, he adds, "If you wanted, of course." He hesitates before clasping a hand on her shoulder. "Think on it."_

Yang looked at Velvet, unconsciously rubbing her prosthetic with her left hand. "I mean, Ember's a monk—they have the same bonuses for either hand and they don't _have_ to punch for their Flurry of Blows ability. So, really, it's just a matter of not being able to use two-handed weapons, right?"

Velvet thought for a moment. "Ember would also take a penalty on two-handed actions—certain climb checks, things like that. It's up to you."

"I..." She stuttered and bit her bottom lip. " _Ember_ should have both arms. It's what makes sense for her." Yang managed a small smile. "Besides, then she can flip off people mid-battle again!"

Everyone lets out a quiet laugh as Velvet chastises her with a half-hearted "Lawful!"

"Neutral!" Yang shot back. "Though—how long does it take? I'm thinking we'll be walking into a shitstorm back at the city."

Velvet quickly consulted the _Player's Handbook_. "2d10 rounds."

"And a round is six seconds?" Yang paused as she did the math. "So it'll take a _maximum_ of two minutes to _regrow an arm_?" her voice pitched upwards incredulously. She shook her head slowly with a dour snort. "If only it were that easy in real life," she murmured as her eyes lingered on her prosthetic limb.

 _The weary adventurers are given free food and lodging by the grateful villagers. After a hearty meal and hot baths, they settle into their simply-furnished room at the inn for a long rest._

"So... what else was on the ship?" Ruby asked.

"Beyond the grimm and some mining equipment, there's nothing of value," the DM replied.

"Well, in that case, could we go back to the mine in the morning?"

"I think we've got to go back to the city in the morning," Weiss told her. "Why do you want to go back to the mine?"

Ruby bit her lip but didn't respond.

"You want that chainsaw, don't you?" Blake sighed.

"No! Well... not _just_ that."

Yang tried reasoning with her. "I highly doubt Velvet would allow you to combine it with your scythe."

"Absolutely _not_ ," Velvet confirmed, the note of finality quelling all argument.

Ruby let out a long whine but let it go.

* * *

The lull in conversation was interrupted by an ominous growl from Yang's stomach. She looked sheepish as everyone gawked. "Maybe we could do dinner?" she suggested once the noise subsided.

Velvet nodded as she leaned over to call into the living room, "Yatsu, can you phone for pizza?" The TA nodded absently, eager for an excuse to stretch. Velvet turned to address the players. "Please stay on your side of the table. I've got to rearrange my notes now that my planned scenarios... went a bit bollocks."

Weiss and Blake checked in regarding their preferences for toppings, leaving the sisters to argue over what they wanted on their shared pizza and poor Yatsuhashi to wrangle the noisy pair. While everyone's attention was occupied, Blake angled her head down conspiratorially. "So, about that 'nothing' you nearly lost your turn over?" she asked Weiss without preamble.

Weiss flushed a little. "Oh! I, uh—" she lowered her voice in embarrassment, "I was trying to figure out how to give him a wedgie, but I wasn't high enough level to cast any of Bigby's Hands, and Mage Hand wouldn't have done any damage," she finished in a rush.

Blake stared at her. Those were certainly not words she'd ever expected to hear from her girlfriend's mouth. "A wedgie?" she repeated dumbly.

The flush deepened. "It's... silly, I know, but I was upset at him for hurting you and—"

"It's kind of romantic, actually, that you were considering something so unlike yourself on my behalf." Blake beamed. "He totally deserved a wedgie, too," she snickered, pressing a kiss to Weiss' temple.

"If you're done being mushy," Yang interrupted, "help pass out plates and napkins so we can get to eating as soon as the pizza arrives!"

"And if you're not doing anything useful, how about picking up the stuff you all threw during the game?" Velvet added.

Weiss grabbed the stack of plates and napkins proffered by Yang and began setting them out.

"You just don't want to touch food that's been on the ground," Blake grumbled as she walked around the table to retrieve her d20 and sweep up the stray popcorn kernels.

Before long, pizza delivery arrived and minor scuffles erupted as they divvied up the slices. Several people exchanged amused glances as Weiss cut into her share daintily with a fork and knife, but no one said a word. The sound of contented chewing filled the air as they ate, and the conversation returned to the game. Ruby bounced around the room as she reenacted her favorite scenes. Most of them starred herself, of course, but a few featured the other party members.

Weiss took the opportunity to get her attention as the ball of energy returned to her seat. "Now that we're all back together, can we please not split the party again?"

"Why?" Ruby asked, taking a large bite of pizza. "Splitting the party worked out pretty well last time," she mumbled with her mouth full.

Everyone stared aghast at Ruby.

Yang was deathly silent as she held up her prosthetic arm—with a single raised finger—and pointed to it angrily with her left hand.

" _Oh_. Right..." Ruby shrank so far in her seat she was practically hiding under the table.

" _Ruby Rose_ , you sit yourself up properly while I yell at you!"

When Ruby continued to cower under the table, Velvet thought it wise to intervene before blood could be shed. Coco would _never_ let her hear the end of it if—heaven forbid—the carpet got stained. "Yang, if you throttle her, that _also_ counts as splitting the party."

It didn't end the daggers that Yang glared at Ruby, but at least she didn't look ready to leap out of her seat and strangle her sister anymore.

As they tidied up the paper plates and half-eaten crusts, Velvet found Weiss in the kitchen, mercifully alone. "I wanted to apologize for the 'White Fang versus SDC' mix-up earlier..." she began.

Weiss stopped her with a gentle wave. "It's really okay. I _know_ how faunus see the SDC and its legacy, and I can't say it's an undeserved image. I was already looking at ways to change the company when I met Blake, and by now I've been with her long enough to... to have very different ideas from how I'd been raised." She grinned. "As long as your story doesn't involve the SDC under _my_ leadership, I don't mind."

Velvet nodded with a smile. "Deal."

As Weiss walked past Ruby, she felt a hand at her wrist stopping her. "Oh my god, Weiss, is that a tiny origami crane pendant?" Ruby asked, peering closely at the necklace.

"Yes, Blake folded it out of a Starburst wrapper for me." The words were already out of her mouth before she realized who she was speaking to. She looked up in time to see Yang's expression of utter horror. "I'm sorry," she mouthed, but Yang only scowled in return.

Like wrangling cats—though Blake _was_ the first to sit down—Velvet eventually managed to get all the players back around the table. The DM skimmed her revised notes one last time in preparation for the next phase of her campaign. Weiss and Blake began choosing Myrtle's spells for the day ahead. Ruby and Yang argued over the rightful ownership of some of the more colorful dice.

"Ruby, don't you have to choose spells too?" Weiss asked as she adjusted her glasses, trying to concentrate over the argument and subtly fend off Blake.

"I'm just going to use the same ones I had yesterday." Ruby had stood in her chair to try and reach Yang, but sat back down after a glare from Velvet.

"After what happened in town, I don't think we're going for stealth anymore," Blake pointed out.

Ruby stuck her tongue out at her but pulled over her copy of the _Player's Handbook_ to review spells as well.

"Don't give me that look. It's not like I'm happy about it, either!" Blake protested. "I _prefer_ the shadows."

Having snaked an extra d20 from Ruby, Yang cackled as she spun the pair in her left hand. "Let's get _rolling_!"


	4. Experience Gained

_The party departs as the sun rises, carefully heeding Rose's advice not to rouse Qrow from his mead-induced slumber. Their trip back to the city is eerily uneventful, the surrounding woodlands almost worryingly silent._

 _The city seems tense as they arrive. Glynda Goodwitch intercepts the party as they approach the Guildmaster's Quarters._

"Do we know who she is?" asked Weiss, referring to the newly-arrived NPC.

Velvet paused momentarily, flipping back hurriedly through her notes. " _Bloody hell_ , was she not in the first scene?" she cursed under her breath.

Weiss shook her head.

The DM sighed at her own slip-up. "You recognize her as the second-in-command at the Guild."

 _"I will be debriefing you this morning," Glynda begins curtly. "The Doctor was able to send a 'short' message to the Guild, but since he apparently can't write anything shorter than a_ dissertation _, we will need your firsthand account of your mission to Mountain Glenn." She pauses as her eye twitches. "Just skip the 'pretty rocks' and go straight to the dragon."_

 _The party fills in the substantial gaps left by Oobleck's message. As they finish recounting their mission, the topic turns to the reports of grimm heading towards the city. Though the party had not encountered any on their own journey that morning, Goodwitch has received reliable accounts from other sources: these aren't wayward grimm too young to be cautious around large settlements, but veritable legions of hulking monsters, many from the scarcely-traversed Forever Fall to the north of the city. While grimm sometimes travel in larger packs, the only explanation for the numberless horde descending on the city is that something_ drawing _them to it._

 _As the discussion with Goodwitch comes to a close, Rose fidgets with her weapon. "So, where is the Guildmaster?"_

 _"Oz—the Guildmaster is engaged in a... deeper battle against a far greater evil than what you've uncovered for us. He will be unable to join in the immediate fight that appears to be brewing." The distant tone is immediately swept away under her business-like demeanor as she turns to Ember. "If you are ready, the clerics are waiting for you in the temple."_

 _The adventurers are dismissed without fanfare, and their trek to the temple is as uneventful as their return from Mountain Glenn—the streets are deserted and no lights glow from inside the many shuttered shops, even though it's past opening time for many businesses. Only the Temple of Tamara shows some signs of life, and after a quick exchange, the clerics set to work on Ember._

 _"If any of them try a 'healing touch,' make sure they're not copping a feel," growls Ember as she's guided to a small bed in the back of the temple. One of the clerics approaches, carrying a medallion of a seven-pointed star on a field of black. He shakes his head at Ember's statement, but starts up his quiet chant, laying his free hand on the stump of her right arm._

 _Myrtle lets out an offended huff. "These are clerics devoted to the service of their god; they're not going to 'cop a feel' while healing you!"_

 _Ember only raises an eyebrow. "And I'm a_ monk _, and I'd do it!"_

Everyone groaned at the tortuous logic and hypocrisy of Yang's admission.

"You're all gathered around Ember's cot?" asks Velvet, eliciting nods from the players. "Alright, everyone make a Listen check."

Ruby whined at her die. "How can I critically fail a _Listen_ check?"

"13."

"23."

"11."

 _Rose hears a noise outside and jumps to attention, but her cape snags on the censer behind her chair and flings the burning incense across the floor as the silver lid clatters to the ground. As she hurries to ensure that her clothes aren't on fire, the noise is all but forgotten._

"I tell you: capes are a bad idea." admonished Yang.

"Aren't you busy regrowing an arm or something? Leave me alone!" hissed Ruby.

 _Across from her, Shroud's head snaps upright, suddenly shaken from the hypnotic trance watching the clerics at work had put her under. She hears what sound like panicked shouts coming from outside the temple's doors. She can't make out the words, but she_ can _hear what sounds like a small crowd running by._

 _Shroud quickly alerts her companions, Myrtle and Rose both surveying the temple uneasily. While the large, iron-banded doors make it an eminently defensible location, there are also no other obvious exits if they're attacked._

 _"I'll go take a look outside," murmurs Shroud, and her fellow adventurers nod in agreement. Shroud quickly covers the distance to the temple door, crouches low, and peers out._

Blake was rolling a spot check before Velvet had even asked. "26."

"Well?" demanded Ruby. "What's out there?"

 _Dozens of men wielding swords and spears are running through the streets, shouting frantically. Off in the distance, Shroud can make out the forms of avian grimm flying towards the city. With no threats in the immediate vicinity, she shuts the temple door as quietly as she can, trying not to attract unwanted attention._

 _"What happens if the regeneration process is interrupted?" Myrtle wonders aloud._

"Yeah, can I get stuck with, like, nineteen-twentieths of a regenerated arm?" asked Yang, mostly out of morbid curiosity.

Velvet let out an exasperated sigh as she rolled her d10s. "Oh look, a 3. Nothing goes wrong and Ember's arm is fully regrown in well under a minute."

 _"Ow," grumbles Ember, wincing faintly at the pins-and-needles sensation coursing through her regrown flesh. Judging by the sounds of chaos on the streets, however, there's no time to test the efficacy of the newly regenerated arm. Ember joins the party as they prepare to exit the temple. She flexes the limb and cracks a grin. "I guess it'll be trial by—"_

"A Fireball crashes into the door as the monk speaks. Roll a Reflex save."

 _The party escapes the flames intact, though Myrtle's robe is singed. "All right, Guildsmen," Rose declares, brandishing her scythe, "Banzai!"_

 _Sticking_ close _together, the adventurers run straight towards the sounds of bloodshed, already spotting pillars of smoke in the distance where the fighting has consumed whole buildings. They reach one of the major intersections a few minutes later, rounding the corner to an alley leading to one of the city's main gates._

 _Among the rag-tag militiamen are a handful of Guildsmen, four of whom are entangled in a fierce battle with a lone White Fang spellcaster and a pack of monsters. A gleeful laugh splits the air as a female dwarf swings a giant warhammer at the serpentine grimm attacking her. "I'll break your legs!" she shouts._

 _The slim young man next to her drives his twin daggers into the black wolf before him as he quietly notes, "Nora, it's a king taijitu. I'm pretty sure snakes don't_ have _legs."_

 _Nora shrugs airily. "But it's got two heads! I'll break those instead!"_

 _Their apparent leader—a tall redhead with a golden circlet who is armed with a small shield and a spear—starts to respond, but gets distracted by another explosion behind them._

 _"Stay here," she orders as she darts into the alley the explosion came from, muttering about the citadel._

 _"Hey! Wait!" the blond she was fighting beside yells. "Stop, stop! Pyrrha, please don't do this!" he cries, but the ursa he's fighting knocks him to one side and into a building, ensuring he wouldn't be able to catch up to her._

 _They help the remaining three guildsmen finish off the pack of grimm quickly, but there's no catching up to Pyrrha now. Movement in the smoke-filled alley she disappears into catches their eye._

 _A tall, broad-shouldered man emerges from the haze. He carries himself with authority despite having lost half his clothes—_

The DM was interrupted by a gale of laughter.

 _—to a_ fire _sometime during the battle._ She tried to cover-up her wording malfunction to no avail.

Velvet glared at the party, who were all laughing too hard to breathe. She tried again. "Directing the local militia is a tall, broad-shouldered man who carries himself with authority despite _his tattered uniform..._ "

It took a couple more moments for the group to compose themselves—though Yang only managed after she stopped trying to make eye contact with anyone.

Blake was still grinning as she gestured to Velvet to continue.

"Most of the right side of his body is exposed, revealing it to be made of stone."

There was a noise from Velvet's right as Yang thumped her head against the table, her entire body wracked with silent laughter.

Velvet ran through what she had just said, trying to figure out what had set Yang off this time.

"How far over does the rock go?" Yang wheezed out.

"I—I don't know? You can't tell. Is it important?" Velvet really should have known better than that by now.

Yang nodded fervently. "We have to know if he takes his _hard_ -on for _granite_."

The reactions around the room were varied. Ruby immediately flipped her hood up and tried to slink under the table.

Weiss flushed a faint pink as she got the puns.

Blake pinched the bridge of her nose, fighting to conceal a smile.

Velvet just gaped for a long moment before covering her face with both hands. "You recognize him as General Ironwood, leader of the local militia and a friend of the Guild, though you've never spoken to him directly," she went on as if there hadn't been an interruption, though it's half-muffled.

" _Iron_ wood? Sounds more like _Stone_ —"

Yang was cut off abruptly by Velvet continuing the narration.

 _Most of the militia is dressed in ill-fitting leather armor and scurry about frantically, wide-eyed and uncoordinated, but the General moves with military precision. As he turns to address some of his charges, Rose spots a plain greatsword in the baldric across his back._

Ruby snorted. "A greatsword?! That's all he's got?"

"What's the matter? Disappointed by the General's 'short' sword?" teased Yang, eliciting groans from everyone around the table.

Everyone except Ruby, who remained naively ignorant of the innuendo. "Yeah! I mean, he's _obviously_ a big and important dude, so his sword should be, like, at least _twice_ as long as a normal one."

"Really, Ruby, it's _how_ he uses it that's important," continued Yang, a cackle escaping despite her best efforts as she took in her sister's _thoroughly_ confused expression.

"Someone... stop them..." pleaded Velvet as Yang threw her head back, surrendering to maniacal laughter.

Weiss and Blake exchanged glances and quiet words. Pale cheeks flushed as Weiss lost the argument and got up with a sigh. She headed over to whisper in Ruby's ear while Blake clamped a hand over Yang's mouth and hissed at her, "until you _hush_ , I'll be making your rolls for you."

Yang's eyes narrowed for a moment before Blake frowned and reached for a napkin. "You did not just _lick_ me," she growled as she wiped her first hand and pressed her other hand—still holding the napkin—over Yang's mouth.

On the other side of the table, Ruby turned as red as her hood, sinking back into her chair and refusing to meet anyone's eyes.

Yang tapped the hand covering her mouth, and Blake cautiously let go. "It's not as much fun now that she _knows_ ," she explained.

 _There is a loud crash as a bird-monster the size of a building lands awkwardly in the streets, brought down by the attacks from the ground. Nearby, two groups of guildsmen head towards the prone grimm, intent on eradicating the threat while it is weakened. In a feat of unspoken coordination, the swordsmen of the group execute a synchronized attack from opposite ends of the street. Their respective teams launch them into the air and they cleave the very head of the monster from its neck._

 _Rose sighs in awe as the swordsmen heft their massive weapons over their shoulders. "Now_ those _are greatswords!" she whispers._

Ruby looked more closely at the miniatures that had been set out to depict the chaos of the fights, focusing in on one of the ones near the decapitated bird. "Wait, that miniature looks like Banesaw... but he has a greatsword."

"It's _not_ Banesaw, though it is the same miniature. I _do_ have a limited number of them."

Blake picked up the rabbit faunus miniature next to not-Banesaw to admire it. "I do like your collection of faunus." She peered closer at the other greatsword-wielder. "Is that one an _owl_ faunus?"

"You've got a good eye!" Velvet said as she dropped another grimm onto the map. Literally.

 _A giant skeletal scorpion crashes down from above without warning, landing heavily on the outer wall of the city and creating a gap in the masonry. The creature is nearly dead from the impact, its golden stinger dangling limply from the tip of its tail, so the guildsmen turn their gazes upwards, shielding their eyes from the sun as they look for the source of the falling grimm._

 _They can see a black dragon circling overhead, dropping grimm across the city as it flies back and forth._

 _A monkey-tailed faunus from one of the other groups slumps forward in disbelief. "You have_ got _to be kidding me."_

* * *

 _"All right, looks like the north wall is sealed," declares Rose, watching as the General directs the completion of barricades. "At least we don't have to worry about grimm from_ outside _the city."_

 _"Yeah, but for how long?" retorts Ember. "That dragon could swing back around at any moment and blow the wall wide open."_

 _They all paused for a moment. "Wait a minute, why_ isn't _the dragon attacking the fortifications?" asks Myrtle, finally putting voice to what they'd all been wondering. "Its behavior certainly doesn't suggest it's being controlled by someone looking for a tactical advantage."_

"What's the dragon doing?" asked Blake, addressing the DM.

"While the dragon _had_ been flying back and forth across the city in a haphazard fashion, you can all see that it's now just circling a tall spire in the center of the city. Make a Knowledge: Local check."

 _"That's Beacon Citadel," declares Rose, the only one of the four intimately familiar with the oldest quarter of the city. "But why would anyone..."_

 _Beacon Citadel is a stone fortress built atop the tallest of the city's seven hills, and its centuries-old watchtower provides a commanding view of the surrounding lands. Once a keep par excellence, the citadel had been rendered obsolete by new walls ringing the city and years of peace with the neighboring kingdoms. These days, it is used mostly as an armory and a storehouse, busy only during the infrequent ceremonies it still hosts. While a few members of the city guard remain stationed there, they have left it unguarded to move closer to the front lines of battle._

Gesturing for everyone to help clear the table, Velvet laid out a massive grid depicting the city's sprawling streets and alleyways. The players mulled over the map, trying to identify an optimal route to the Citadel at the center while avoiding the White Fang patrols and pockets of monsters dotting the city.

 _Shroud scouts ahead and spots a small group of grimm prowling the streets searching for easy prey. She returns to the party and updates them on what she's seen. There's no avoiding the fight—not unless they want to add a half hour's detour to their journey—but if they can get it over with quickly, they should reach the Citadel with no further interruptions. Myrtle casts Haste on everyone and they advance rapidly, trying to surprise the grimm._

 _Shroud moves past the party in a blur. In a single leap, she reaches the rooftop of a nearby inn, using it as a platform to approach her quarry. Running at a dead sprint, she launches her lithe form off the building's edge to reach the nearer of two snake heads, the one reared high in the air. She lands nimbly on its neck and deals a crushing two-handed blow, sinking her kusari-gama deeply into the white head, directly between the creature's eyes. Wrenching the blade free with a scraping of bone and scales, Shroud leaps down to the cobbled road where the other half of the king taijitu is coiled. Deftly dodging the gnashing fangs with superhuman speed as the white snake head writhes in its death throes, she makes her move before the remaining head can strike. Lashing her chain securely around the snake's jaw, she steadies herself against its wild bucking and drives her blade into its eye, and_ twists _. As it recoils in agonizing pain, Shroud leaves the blade embedded but unwinds the chain, dropping to the ground in a silent crouch. Securing her hold on her weapon, she braces herself as the snake reaches the end of the tether, snapping the chain taut, before the kusari-gama blade rips loose from the bony orbit of its eye socket and tears out a large section of its skull. The monster splatters gore across the street as it thrashes one last time._

Blake stared at the DM in disbelief. "What."

"Everyone else's characters had their moment in the spotlight, so I thought you should get your moment, too."

"Velvet, I'm a _shadow_ dancer. What part of 'shadow' screams 'spotlight' to you?"

"I thought it was awesome!" Ruby piped up. "You were all, like, 'Hooowaaah! Witchaaaa!'" She enthusiastically pantomimed a series of martial arts strikes and poses to accompany the ridiculous sound effects.

Blake rolled her eyes. "You think a _chainsaw-scythe combo_ is awesome. I don't trust your judgment or taste!"

"Well, _I_ thought it was awesome, too," Weiss whispered in her ear.

Having almost entirely run out of popcorn, Yang resorted to flicking unpopped kernels at the public display of affection.

 _With the largest grimm downed before the others could even react, the party makes short work of the remaining enemies._

Velvet rustled papers behind her screen. "From where you stand, you can see a light at the tower top. As you watch, it brightens into a blinding inferno—clearly visible even in the late-morning sun—something is burning very hot, very fast."

 _"Is there_ normally _a light there?" asks Myrtle, turning to face Rose._

 _Rose shakes her head. "I've never seen anything brighter than torchlight from there._ That _looks like... something bigger than torches."_

 _"Well," declares Ember, cracking her knuckles, "what are we waiting for?"_

* * *

 _"Wait!" Ember's shout is barely audible in the distance as Rose skitters to a halt at the end of the staircase. She cautiously advances, silver eyes sweeping across the section of the tower top covered in lit candles, a makeshift shrine at its center._

 _The woman who stands on the far side of the altar is too tall to be a full elf, but she holds her shortbow with the natural ease of her ancestors. Her dark hair falls elegantly around her face, held out of her eyes by a striking golden circlet._

 _She spots Rose immediately, leisurely plucking an arrow from her quiver and gesturing with it as if it were a baton. "Poor little guildsman," she murmurs, running her fingers through the fletching, "so eager to save the day. I'm afraid you're too late: the sacrifice has been made to Tiamat and her power now aids our machinations. The city will fall to the waves of grimm and White Fang attacks, and your precious Guild will be nothing but a smoldering wreck." She speaks softly at first, almost disinterestedly, but passion and fervor quickly creep into her voice as she settles the arrow on her bowstring. "Once we have destroyed this kingdom and wiped clean the slate of this land, a new empire—the likes of which the world has never seen—will emerge from its ashes. My crown, a testament to the sacrifice made here today, marks my place in this new world. Our reign will usher in a golden age unmatched in history, and we will—"_

Yang propped her chin up with her hands. "Is she hot? She sounds hot."

Velvet looked down at her notes and back up at Yang with a sigh. "I can't even be mad at you for that pun."

"That wasn't a pun!" Yang sputtered.

"Her name is _Cinder_."

Yang's indignation melted into a grin. "So she _is_ hot."

"Are you hitting on the main villain of this campaign?" asked Blake in a tone that suggested that she knew exactly what the answer was.

Weiss interrupted Yang's unconvincing denial with a chime of laughter. "That's something else you share with Samson: you both have _terrible_ taste in women."

 _Ember's the next to reach the top of the stairs. "Rose! Running at top speed is_ splitting the party _when you move nearly twice as fast as half the party!" she pants._

 _"We have a_ bigger _problem on our hands!" Rose says, narrowly dodging Cinder's arrow. They both shout in surprise when it erupts into a Fireball, barely throwing themselves out of the way in time._

 _"_ Another _wizard?" Ember demands._

 _"I still think Neo was a rogue," Shroud grumbles as she and Myrtle arrive, both having avoided the explosion by mere inches._

 _"That was an_ arrow _!" Rose protests._

 _All four of them glance across the terrace, now that the flames have faded._

"Give me an INT check."

 _Shroud fires back with a crossbow bolt as soon as she has an angle, but Myrtle is distracted by the sight of ritual runes cut into the floor and low rampart around the candlelit space. An altar decorated with chromatic dragon carvings and a dragon skull dominates the set-up, but unlike the one in the mines, a large pile of ash sits at the center of the symbols, hints of gold metal glittering throughout. It looks like a funeral pyre turned into a sacrifice._

 _"I think_ she _woke the dragon up. This is reminiscent of what we saw in the mine." She points her wand at Cinder and sends a quick Magic Missile in her direction._

 _Rose darts around the battlements, giving Cinder a wide berth before coming to a halt on the far side to attack her. "That's great. So we have a really high-level wizard—who thinks it's fun to shoot Fireball arrows at us—sacrificing_ something _to wake up a_ dragon _that's been trapped in a mountain for Kord knows how long and is probably pissed at all of humanity." She swings her scythe in a wide arc, gashing the half-elf across the shoulder but failing to dislodge the bow in her grip._

 _Ember closes the distance, kicking Cinder in the face, but swings too wide with the follow-up punch._

 _The half-elf seems unfazed by the blows, nocking another arrow and shooting it at Ember, who yelps as it finds its mark. The yelp turns agonized when the projectile bursts into cone of flame, forcing Myrtle and Shroud behind her to jump out of the way._

"What was _that_?" Yang demanded as she adjusted her hit points.

"Spellcraft checks if you have the skill, please."

Ruby and Weiss grabbed their d20s.

"14."

"19."

Velvet nodded. "You recognized the spell—it's Burning Hands, but the cone spread from the arrow, not from Cinder."

"Oooh!" squealed Ruby, "are those enchanted arrows?" _Rose eyes the archer's quiver with interest._

"No, you can't have them!" Velvet answered the inevitable follow-up question.

 _Switching to her kusari-gama, Shroud moves around to Ember's right, wrapping her weapon around the bow and pulling it towards herself. There's a brief struggle before it clatters to the ground between the two of them._

 _Myrtle comes up behind Shroud, pulling a piece of licorice root out of the pouch on her belt to cast Haste on her party. Rose steps back to cast her own spell, and an unnatural Silence settles onto the battlefield._

Blake narrowed her eyes when Ruby declared what spell she was going to cast. "You didn't change your spell list, did you?"

"Silence has plenty of uses besides stealth!" Ruby protested.

"Like preventing your party wizard from casting spells?" Weiss was clearly unamused.

"Only ones with verbal components! And it only lasts three minutes!"

Weiss glared. "And a round lasts six _seconds._ I don't think we'll be here for _thirty rounds_."

"Weiss, roll a Will Save," Velvet cut in through the bickering.

"23?" she ventured.

"You can cast spells," the DM reassured her. "You _do_ get a Will save if you want to fight the Silence."

 _Ember takes full advantage of the additional attack from Haste, getting in two solid kicks, knocking the wind out of the half-elf. Cinder recovers quickly, however, firing at Myrtle with a handful of Scorching Rays, but she's able to dodge them. Shroud sinks her kusari-gama into Cinder's arm, which has her stumbling back in surprise._

 _Myrtle reaches into her pack, pulling out a bundle of scrolls covered in arcane writings. She quickly flips through to the "L"s and extracts the spell, reading the incantation written on the parchment. A Lightning Bolt shoots from her fingertips, hitting Cinder squarely in the chest._

 _"_ How _many scrolls did you buy? And not use until now?" shouts Ember as she dodges a stray spark of electricity._

 _"I'm neurotic, okay?" hisses Myrtle in response._ The table, however, was pretty certain it was Weiss speaking for herself.

 _"And_ still _no ice spells, eh?" Ember snickers as she readies an attack, but she spins around at the sensation of an ice cube bouncing off her shoulder. "Did you just cast Ray of Frost at me?!"_

 _"Couldn't have been me, since I_ have no ice spells _," the wizard shoots back in a deadpan._

 _Though reeling from the effects of the bolt of lightning, Cinder is able to rally in time to avoid Rose's scythe, but moments later the attacks from Ember have her off-balance again._

 _Cinder's labored cackle cuts through the Silence in the area, startling them all. "You really think killing me will be the end of it?" she asks, slowly backing towards the outer wall. "Such_ arrogance _. Find whatever comfort you can in knowing that_ we _will make this world a better place, for this is our_ destiny _." She sends a second set of Scorching Rays towards Ember, Myrtle, and Shroud, who all dodge with ease._

 _Before Shroud can attack, though, a red spear whizzes by her head and embeds itself in Cinder's sternum. Not questioning the help, the shadowdancer uses the long chain on her weapon to send the blade deep into the half-elf's ankle, severing the tendon._

 _"Move!" Myrtle shouts and they all dive out of the way as she unleashes her own Fireball._

 _Cinder staggers forward before collapsing into the middle of the ritual set-up, sending up a cloud of ash._

 _The four adventurers turn towards the entrance to look at the newcomer._

 _"Hello again!" The redhead from earlier—Pyrrha—smiles at the group. "I'm sorry! General Ironwood asked me to come provide assistance but it looks like nothing bad happened while I was delayed." She carefully steps across the rune-covered floor to retrieve the spear she'd thrown. "It was nice meeting you!" she adds with a wave, heading back down the tower to, presumably, rejoin her party and continue helping the fighters in the streets._

 _The adventurers barely have time to wave as Pyrrha appears and disappears in a few short breaths. They're exchanging confused glances and shrugs when an enormous black shape looms in the air above them._

* * *

Velvet placed an absolutely massive miniature onto the map, dwarfing everything already out. "The dragon lands on the tower next to you. Everyone—"

"That's not a dragon," Yang protested.

Everyone turned to stare at her. "What," Velvet asked, voice flat.

"That's _not_ a dragon. It's only got two legs! It's _clearly_ a wyvern." She gestured to the token, which did only have two legs.

Velvet looked to Blake for help, who only shrugged. "She's not wrong."

"Wyverns are usually classified as a subset of dragons and are generally included in the greater draconian family in most mythologies," Weiss offered. "Was it breathing fire earlier when it was dropping grimm? Wyverns can't typically do that."

"If it's a black dragon, it wouldn't be breathing fire anyway," Blake countered. "All of the dragons have their own breath attack types based on color—black dragons breathe _acid_."

Yang nodded along with Blake's explanation. "And in 3.5, wyverns have their own entry in the _Monster Manual_. They're not just a subset of dragons. It's an important distinction so we can estimate how tough this fight will be."

Weiss rolled her eyes. "I think at this point we _know_ how tough it'll be."

"Yeah, but with a dragon we have to worry about breath attacks, age, size—" Blake broke off as she studied the miniature. "Actually, how big _is_ this creature?"

Velvet consulted her notes. "It's 'gargantuan' by the book, or about 20 feet long, 10 feet wide, and about 15 feet tall at about the shoulder. It's got about a 20 foot wingspan?"

"So if it were a proper dragon, it'd be a wyrm or great wyrm..." She paled. "Oh god, we can't possibly take on a CR of 20 _plus_!"

"It's homebrew!" Velvet insisted.

"Then why do you keep calling it a _dragon_?!" Yang growled.

"Well _I'm_ calling it Kevin."

The argument abruptly died as everyone gaped at Ruby.

"Like—like that ridiculous bird from _Up_?" Blake asked, baffled.

Ruby nodded.

Velvet threw her hands in the air. "You know what? Sure. Kevin it is!"

 _The tower shakes as Kevin lands. Its eyes pulse as the nodes and lines on its skeletal face light up with a sinister red glow. Its mouth opens wide—far wider than anyone expects—the rows of teeth extending impossibly far back along its neck, though ropy tendrils of half-melted flesh are the only thing keeping the jaw from unhinging like a snake's. Kevin lets out an ear-shattering roar, sustaining the awful noise as it sweeps its head around to fix each adventurer with its baleful glare, splattering stinging spittle everywhere._

"Give me a Will save, everyone!"

"23."

"25."

"18?"

"30! I laugh in its face!"

 _Rose feels a shudder shoot up her spine, but she steels herself against the creature roaring at her. Shroud, however, is deeply shaken by the noise and falls victim to fright._

"Scaredy cat!"

Weiss had the presence of mind to grab Blake's wrist before she could leap out of her seat to tackle Yang.

Ignoring the commotion, Velvet continued. "Take a minus 2 on all your d20 rolls for..." she paused while several dice clattered behind the screen, "10 rounds."

Displaying a marked lack of self-preservation instincts, Yang bantered on. "At least you're just frightened and not forced to flee: you're only 'shaken,' not 'stirred'!"

Blake growled as she tried to wrest her hand free from Weiss. A pointed cough from the DM, however, cut the struggle short.

"Initiative rolls, please?"

"21."

"17."

"24."

"19!"

"All right—Shroud, Rose, Ember, Myrtle, then Kevin."

 _Shroud took a deep breath to steady herself, but her hands were shaking too badly to aim properly with her kusari-gama. Rose, on the other hand, has no issues slicing through the beast's thick hide._

 _Ember concentrates her attacks on the wyvern's neck, snickering each time the creepily elongated lips twitch and expose the flesh behind the teeth._

 _Myrtle casts Mage Armor on herself, bolstering her defenses slightly against physical attacks._

 _Kevin shudders and Darkness falls over the group, blotting out the sun. They can still make out the shadowy outlines of one another, and of Kevin, but they are going to have a lot harder time of it._

 _Shroud is able to rally and sink her weapon deep into its neck, tearing out a chunk of flesh as she pulls back. On the other hand, Rose struggles to find Kevin in the darkness, swinging wildly while Ember bruises her knuckles against its scaly hide._

 _Rolling her eyes at the less-than-effective attacks on Kevin, Myrtle grabs another scroll and, with a little difficulty, reads an incantation under her breath. A brilliant bright light bursts forth from the parchment, driving back the dark._

 _Kevin rears back and a strange hissing and gurgling noise emanates from its chest. It opens its jaws and launches a line of acid at Ro—_

"But it's not a _dragon_!" Yang exclaimed.

" _Why_ are you arguing with the DM?" Ruby interjected before Velvet could even respond.

"Suck up!" hissed Yang.

Velvet glared at Yang as she continued describing the attack. "Kevin launches a line of acid at _Ember_."

Yang groaned when the attack hit. Ruby merely snickered.

The clattering of dice behind the DM's screen went on for an alarmingly long time.

"Uh, how many dice are you rolling?" Yang asked with trepidation.

"Kevin's acid breath is 14d4," Velvet replied absently as she tallied up the total.

"Oh god."

"33 points of damage."

"Don't you dare melt my arm off! I just got it back!" Yang cradled her prosthetic possessively.

 _Shroud moves to keep Kevin's attention well away from Rose and Ember._

 _Rose casts Cure Moderate Wounds on Ember and leaves the monk with a healing potion to take care of the rest of the injuries._

 _Sizing up the massive creature, Myrtle sends a Ray of Enfeeblement towards Kevin. For a moment it staggers forward, off balance, before steadying itself with a hiss._

 _Kevin claws at Ember and Rose with its wings, leaving a deep cut along Ember's side, and lashes out with its tail like a wrecking ball. The sweep takes out a swath of the wall ringing the tower top but fails to hit any of the adventurers. It then rears up on its hind legs and flings itself bodily towards Shroud, who narrowly dodges the wyvern. Its massive bulk is barely stopped by the deteriorating wall as more stones fall to the ground below. Not content with missing the shadowdancer, Kevin aims its final attack at Shroud and manages to graze her with its fangs._

 _Chugging a healing potion, Shroud assesses the state of the tower top, noting the many sections of battlements that had crumbled away during the fighting. The wall was already fairly low, and with large gaps looming open, a strong hit from Kevin could be disastrous. "We need to get down to the ground," she shouts, "before we're knocked off the tower!"_

 _Rose immediately bolts for the wall and and loops a rope around a section of undamaged battlements, disappearing over the edge. She pops her head up momentarily to taunt Kevin before scampering down the side of the tower as the wyvern launches its bulk into the sky._

 _Ember shakes her head vehemently as she makes a beeline away from the tower edge. "Hell no, I'm taking the stairs!"_

"Don't monks have Slow Fall?" Weiss asked.

"Er, well..." Yang snatched the _Player's Handbook_ from across the table and frantically flipped through the pages. "Yes! But the tower's taller than 40 feet!" she huffed in a poor attempt to cover up for her reluctance to jump.

 _"I have Feather Fall!" the wizard calls to the scattering party members, but the fading stomps of Ember's boots and the creaking of Rose's rope are the only responses she hears._

 _Shroud perches on the edge of the tower and holds her palm out towards Myrtle. "Just us, then. Take my hand?"_

 _"But it's not a touch spell..."_

 _"I know," Shroud answers with a grin._

 _Hand in hand, the pair leap from the battlements into thin air. As Myrtle casts Feather Fall, their heady descent slows, as does time itself. Fingers intertwined, Myrtle and Shroud gaze deeply into—_

Velvet abruptly stopped narrating as Blake shot a furious glare around the table. Yang, however, continued with her rendition of _Can You Feel the Love Tonight_ for a good ten seconds.

"Are you quite finished?" asked Blake acerbically, after the weight of their collective scowls finally shut Yang up.

"What, you started it!"

"That was _not_ an invitation for you to join in," Blake growled in reply. She turned to Velvet. "Can we get back to the acid-spitting wyvern, please?"

" _Thank_ you," breathed Ruby in relief.

"What song was that?" Weiss whispered to Blake, pitching her voice to be inaudible to Yang.

"Have you never seen _The Lion King_?"

"No?"

"I think you'd appreciate it. _Hamlet_ with animals, animated by Disney. We'll watch it soon," Blake promised. "Make sure you have some tissues handy."

The look Weiss gave Blake clearly expressed her doubt at crying over soliloquy-punctuated homicides, but she let it go.

 _As Rose climbs down her rope, Kevin circles the tower once before diving in for an attack. With little ability to maneuver, Rose shrieks in pain as Kevin's fangs dig into her leg, an easy target for the predatory wyvern._

"Make a Climb check," instructed Velvet.

"Fuuuudge," Ruby groaned as her d20 came to a stop, before panic set in and she started rifling frantically through the papers and books within arm's reach. "Uh... gimmie a second!"

Blake silently mouthed, "You're gonna fall."

"You do have that re-roll you earned from the Torchwick fight," Weiss spoke up as she elbowed her girlfriend.

"Yes!" Ruby brightened at the lifeline and tried again with a different d20. "Um... 14?" she offered. "See, I'll be fine."

 _With a choked shout, Rose feels the rope slip from her grip. She's now twenty feet above stone-paved roads and dropping like a rock._ Velvet locked eyes with Ruby as she spoke in a passable imitation of Rose, "I'll be fiiiiii—"

 _"She's falling," observes Myrtle dryly._

 _Shroud nods in agreement and quietly moves away from where she expects Rose to land._

 _"If you promise not to run off again, I'll cast Feather Fall for you," offers Myrtle, negotiating at a sedate pace as Rose plummets._

 _"I promise! Do it!"_

 _"What's the magic word?"_

 _"_ Please _!" Rose shouts as she braces for a bone-breaking impact, but she lands with a gentle thump as the wizard's spell takes hold._

 _After making her way down the tower's staircase in record time, Ember runs out—_

"Actually, was there anything we passed by on our way up?" asked Yang.

 _Ember slows to a jog as she spots a small hallway leading to Beacon's gatehouse. Making a quick detour, she pokes her head in and grins as she notices the winch holding up the heavy iron portcullis. Sweeping her gaze across the keep entrance, her grin widens as she sees several openings—aptly named "murder holes"—from where defenders could shoot down on, or drop scalding liquids on top of, invading soldiers._

 _Or, in this case, an invading wyvern._

 _"Everyone get in the keep!" Ember yells at her three companions now standing around in the courtyard. Kevin lands around twenty feet away, the weight of his monstrous body sending a tremor through the ground beneath them._

 _Myrtle sizes up the keep, pondering their rapidly-dwindling options. None of them look viable. "We're trapped if we go in there!" she shouts back. "Do you have a plan?"_

 _"Of course I have a plan!" Ember yells indignantly._

 _"That doesn't make it a_ good _plan," notes Shroud._

"Yeah, remember that time we let Yang plan our grad party, and now none of us are allowed in—"

"Kevin, apparently growing bored of the conversation, breathes a line of acid at Rose," said Velvet, her voice cutting through their bickering. "Or am I interrupting something?" she asked with an innocent smile.

 _Rose barely avoids the acid flung her way. "We're trying to have a team meeting, thank you very little!" She returns to her companions. "Okay, pros and cons_ —"

"Kevin charges the party."

 _"Run!" shrieks Rose, and the three adventurers manage to sprint into the keep ahead of Kevin, throwing themselves out of the way._

 _Kevin attempts to chase the fleeing adventurers, but its shoulders and wings are too wide to squeeze in through the narrow gate opening. It can only snap and spit angrily at its prey standing just out of reach._

 _Ember pulls on the lever in the gatehouse, releasing the massive weight of the portcullis. With a screeching of iron and stone, the pointed spikes at the bottom of the gate sink deeply into Kevin's flesh, and the muffled cracking of bone is audible as the metal bars bear down into the body of the wyvern. It roars in pain and thrashes in place, further tearing open its wounds._

"Ooh, _very_ ingenious," noted Velvet, with what sounded like pride in her voice. "Kevin's effectively pinned, so he's limited to his breath attacks, his bite, and Darkness." Velvet scribbled something behind her screen. "For now. Probably..."

 _The foundations of the tower shudder as Kevin slams into the walls collaring his body. Its cries practically deafen the nearby guildsmen, and they can feel its breaths like acrid steam on their skin._

 _"What now?" yells Rose._

 _"Phase two of my plan!" calls back Ember from the gatehouse. "Kick it in the face until it's dead!"_

A chorus of familiar groans filled the room.

 _Myrtle turns to Rose. "Was there a storeroom in this keep?"_

 _Ember pops her head out of the gatehouse. "I saw something like that on my way down! Follow me!" She gestures excitedly._

 _"Wait, isn't that splitting the party?" Rose tries to stop Ember and Myrtle from ascending the stairs, but they ignore her. "How come_ they _get to split the party?" she grumbles._

 _Shroud and Rose look at wyvern squirming under the gate. "We'll let you know if it gets loose or if the keep starts crumbling!" Rose shouts._

 _"Just keep it busy," Ember responds nonchalantly._

 _"With_ what, _witty banter?!" grouses Rose, but Ember has turned a corner and her response is no longer audible._

 _"Let's just shoot it?" Shroud suggests as takes a potshot with her crossbow. "If you even have a ranged weapon."_

 _Rose's expression widens into a broad smile as she pulls out an elegantly-carved shortbow._

"Wait, where did you get that from?" inquired Weiss, leaning over the table to catch a glimpse of Rose's character sheet.

"Oh, heh, you know..." Ruby replied, glancing furtively about the room. " _Maybe_ I looted it while everyone was arguing about wyverns."

 _"How did you even have time to loot the body?" the shadowdancer demands. A moment of horror turns her blood to ice in her veins. "Wait, did we even confirm that she was dead?!" Shroud hisses urgently._

All eyes snapped to Velvet as she tried to keep from laughing. "You didn't confirm, no," the DM answered, shaking her head. "I mean, you're _probably_ fine."

 _"This should be it!"_

 _Ember and Myrtle burst through an old wooden door, finding themselves staring at cavernous storeroom, assorted supplies packed almost floor-to-ceiling without any apparent organization. The two adventurers exchange apprehensive glances and split up._

"Roll a Search check," prompted Velvet.

 _Desperately casting about, Myrtle hurriedly sifts through decorative banners, tattered militia uniforms, and what appears to be a disassembled wagon._

 _Deeper into the storeroom, Ember finds a rusty anchor, a moth-eaten sail, and several large casks containing unknown liquids._

 _"Huh, I guess there's nothing," says Ember, dejectedly._

 _"Wait, what about the casks?"_

 _"Myrtle, you should know better than to try to ply me with booze," she chastises with a scoff. "'I'm a monk. Nothing defiles_ this _temple." Myrtle rolls her eyes as Ember flexes her muscles in a series of increasingly preposterous poses._

Yang absent-mindedly took a noisy slurp of her beer, leaning back until her chair balanced on only two legs.

"Make an INT check," Velvet said with a sigh.

 _"We can use these," declares Myrtle as she finishes inspecting the intact casks. "Its exact composition is a secret closely-guarded by the Alchemist's Guild, but it's a mix of some sort of oil and a resin-based thickening agent, and probably something like quicklime or sulfur. It's mostly used in naval engagements, but Greek fire..." her monologue peters out when it becomes clear that the monk's eyes are elsewhere._

 _Pyrrha had joined them sometime during Myrtle's explanation, stealing Ember's attention. "Hello again!"_

 _Darting out of reach of Kevin's teeth, Shroud yells at them, "Just_ do _something before it manages to escape!"_

Velvet rolled a die behind her screen, scowling at the result of her STR check. "The gate rises slightly as Kevin tries to lift the portcullis off its back, but its legs slide out from underneath and it crashes back to the ground."

 _"We can use this to kill the wyvern if it's still pinned!" declares Myrtle, almost frantically, as the building shakes slightly._

 _Ember pokes at the pool of resin formed from leaks in the the casks, conspicuously unimpressed. "What are we going to do, stain it to death?"_

 _A streak of the wyvern's caustic spit flies through the air, splashing against Shroud. She hisses in pain, but her kusari-gama carves a bloody crescent in retaliation. Rose is busy imbibing a potion in an effort to staunch the bleeding from Kevin's bite._

"Just firebomb the damn thing already!" demanded Blake, erasing her current HP and penciling in an even-lower number. She didn't even bother meeting Velvet's dour gaze, but one cat-ear flicked irritably in the DM's direction.

 _"You two," says Myrtle in an imperious tone, "roll those casks out to the meurtrière." Blank expressions peer back at her. "The_ murder holes _!"_

 _Ember and Pyrrha grunt in exertion as they attempt to maneuver the oversized barrels through the junk-filled chamber._

"And what are _you_ doing?" asked Velvet, looking expectantly at Weiss.

Weiss waved airily at her. "It's called _supervising_ ," she replied. "It's a cornerstone of good team leadership."

Ruby made an annoyed _ahem_ grunt.

"Oh _all right_."

 _Myrtle moves ahead of Ember and Pyrrha, carefully clearing a pathway so they can easily roll the barrels to the area above Kevin._

 _Once the barrels are in position, Myrtle casts Burning Hands, setting both containers on fire. After a moment to ensure they would continue to burn, the three of them run back outside to join Rose and Shroud in keeping Kevin entertained._

 _They've just barely made it back to the ground level when the fire breaches the barrels and sets the liquid inside aflame and pouring down onto Kevin's shoulders, flowing across its back and neck in rivulets of flickering orange. The frantic beating of its wings only serves to spread and fan the flames, and the translucent red membranes between its bony fingers soon turn to tatters and ashes. The five adventurers get in final attacks as it thrashes and howls in pain, shuddering as it attempts to encase the area in Darkness once more, but the gloom fades back into sunlight when Kevin breathes its last._

"Is it _actually_ dead?" Blake sounded a touch skeptical as the DM finished her description.

"So you learned your lesson, eh?" Velvet laughed.

"You haven't answered the question!"

 _Shroud begins poking the wyvern's body with the blade of her kusari-gama._

"Cross my heart: Kevin's dead."

 _Labored breaths and gasps of relief fill the air. "Well, that was a_ thing _," Ember muses as she nurses an aching hand._

 _"How do_ we _get_ out _?" Rose asks her companions. "Kevin's still, um,_ on fire _."_

 _"I'm not climbing back up those stairs to jump off the damn tower," groans Ember._

 _Pyrrha glances between Kevin and the staircase several times before heading towards the latter, saying something about "unfinished business."_

 _Myrtle glances around the keep for exit options, but Shroud is already sidling past the wyvern's lifeless head and squeezing under the narrow gap beneath the portcullis on the side with the fewest flames. Ember and Myrtle follow her, carefully picking their way around the puddles of acid and fire. Rose emerges last, grumbling about how "unheroic" it is to crawl under the gate, but the complaint is cut short as her cape catches on a portcullis spike, yanking her off-balance._

* * *

 _The four adventurers stand once more in the Guildmaster's Quarters, their wounds still fresh but their spirits high. For all the day's excitement, the Guildmaster appears as calm and thoughtful as ever, though there is a distant weariness in his eyes that wasn't there before. He stares out at the city beneath him, watching as the Guild's spellcasters set about repairing the damage inflicted upon its streets and buildings. The damage to the survivors will be another matter entirely._

 _Slowly and deliberately, Ozpin turns his attention back to the heroes of the day. He takes a careful sip from his porcelain cup, the liquid still threatening to scald. As he seats himself at his desk the aroma of hot cocoa drifts over the gathered adventurers, heavenly after a day of charred flesh and acid._

 _"I do believe congratulations are in order," he begins, his voice breaking the cavernous silence. "It goes without saying that you went above and beyond what could ever have been expected of you. And I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I say that, without you, this city would very likely have been completely destroyed, along with every soul in it." He pauses, taking another small sip. "You displayed both strength and intelligence, bravery and honor, teamwork and individuality... In short, all the characteristics of—"_

 _"Big Damn Heroes," interjects Ember. "Yeah, we saved the day, huzzah. Now, about that reward we were promised. I remember there being something about a bonus for 'disrupting' any schemes we uncovered."_

 _Ozpin waves her off, disinterestedly. "Ms. Goodwitch will see to the disbursement of your reward. But I believe you_ all _will agree that the real reward is the fact that your story will be told to generations of new Initiates. I have no doubt that it will be educational as it is inspirational."_

"Be sure to include the part where Weiss fireballed Torchwick's airship to freedom," Yang said with a grin.

"I'm sorry, remind me _exactly_ how many blows you managed to land on that 'Neo'?"

 _"Once again, you have my gratitude," continues Ozpin. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm afraid all these wizards and wyvern have generated a not-inconsiderable amount of paperwork. But I look forward to working with you four in the future."_

 _Rose seems to deflate a little. "That's all we get for saving the city: a pat on the head?"_

"I'm getting to the gold!" Velvet shot back, a tad defensively. "It's just..." she glanced at her right hand, which was now tapping against the table of its own accord. All the caffeine she'd downed was beginning to catch up with her. "Okay, I'm assuming you want an even, four-way split—"

"I meant the _loooooooot_ ," Ruby whined. "Like, I dunno, an _epic weapon_? Guildmaster's gotta have like a bajillion magic artifacts lying around." She hurriedly flipped through her assorted tomes, extracting a sheet of graph paper. "Maybe I could just run through my Wishlist pretty quick and you could let me know if any—"

"The four adventurers make their way out of the Guildmaster's Quarters," declared Velvet, sending Ruby her steeliest glare. Ruby sunk back into her chair with a huff.

 _The party wanders almost aimlessly through the Guild halls, winding through its corridors and stairwells until they make their way outside, coming to rest on a large hill overlooking the city._

 _"Well, we did it," declares Ember triumphantly._

 _"We did it," confirms Shroud, her tone suggesting she still didn't_ entirely _believe it._

 _"But, I mean, we didn't solve everything," Rose reminds her companions. "A lot of people were hurt, and Cinder kept speaking about a 'we'..."_

 _"Well, not every story has a neat and tidy ending," replies Myrtle._

 _"We might not have all the answers," Shroud adds, "but we do have a lot of dangerous enemies dead. And I think that's something we could be proud of."_

 _That seems to snap Rose out of her melancholy, and she nods enthusiastically at Shroud's words. "Yeah! And if anyone tries something like this again, we'll be there to stop them."_

 _Ember lets out a yawn, lying down flat on her back and staring up at the sky. "Yay, teamwork, camaraderie, good guys, go team, all right, good job... So, what now?"_

Ruby mimicked Ember's yawn. _"Uh... time for bed?" suggests Rose._

 _"Yes."_

 _"Absolutely."_

 _"I'm going to sleep forever."_

* * *

As everyone helped Velvet clear the table, Yang looked curiously at the miniature of the General. "Whatever possessed you to name him _Ironwood_ and give him half a stone body?" she asked.

"Whatever the reason, I regret it deeply, _thanks to you_." A thoughtful expression crossed Velvet's face as Yang tried to hand the miniature over for storage. Instead of taking the token, she pressed it back into Yang's palm. " _You_ can keep him. Here—" she fished out his character sheets from behind her screen and held them out as well, "I never want to see, or hear, about him _ever_ again."

Yang's grin slipped a little, but she accepted the gift. "I'll tone it down next time, yeah?"

Velvet waved her off. "No, it's fine and you weren't as bad as some—wait _next time_? I thought this was a one-shot." She gave Blake a concerned look but only received a shrug in response.

"I wouldn't mind playing again," Weiss chimed in over Yang's cackling. "I really enjoyed this."

Ruby seized upon the opportunity to press the issue. "If we play again, then we need appropriate distribution of loot and experience!" She put on her best puppy-dog expression.

Velvet tried to stare Ruby down with resolve, but heaved a sigh. "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. I've marked down the enemies you've defeated, so I can calculate all that, _if_ we do this again."

Ruby let out a whoop of excitement and went back to cleaning up with much more enthusiasm than before.

The last of the popcorn kernels were swept up, books returned to their rightful owners, and dice dropped into their respective bags, though Velvet couldn't suppress a scowl as she whisked hers into a dark red pouch. It was too bad she didn't have access to the engineering lab any more: crushing her poorly performing dice would have been cathartic. Regardless, maybe she'd need to order some new dice. She doubted she could ever forget how _these ones_ had so utterly betrayed her beloved Torchwick.

Wiping the frown from her face, Velvet saw the other four women out. "I'll text you next week," she promised Blake. "I had fun."

Velvet settled onto the couch next to a dozing Yatsuhashi to make a few notes on her scroll. Truth be told, she already had more than a few ideas about continuing the campaign. A name came unbidden to her lips, the name of a villain who would put all her under-performing antagonists to shame...

"Salem."

Ruby Rose's luck was destined to run out soon or later—especially if she kept dividing the party.

* * *

 **Authors' note:**

No sequel.

* * *

 **Omake & Cetera:**

 _Ozpin strolled through the corridors of the Guild, nodding gently at each guildsman he passed. The palm of his right hand rested atop the head of a smooth black cane, while the fingers of his left were curled around a plain white cup. It was a familiar sight to the generations of adventurers who had passed through these halls, seemingly unchanged over the decades._

 _Coming to a halt at a window overlooking the city, Ozpin raised the cup to his lips once more, the last trickles of its cocoa elixir draining into his mouth. He let out a faint sigh at that, his craving still not sated._

 _The Guildmaster paused, glancing with the utmost discretion to his left and right. The hall was completely empty, nary a soul in sight. After one more furtive sweep of his eyes he swirled the empty cup, only to find hot chocolate lapping at its rim a second later._

 _Ozpin smiled faintly, taking another decadent sip. Rarely did anyone get exactly what they Wished for, but the Guildmaster could not have been more content._

* * *

Alternative title for fic: All of the Meta  
Chapter 1: All of the Shopping  
Chapter 2: All of the Glitter  
Chapter 3: All of the Feels  
Chapter 4: All of the Dick Jokes


End file.
